\p  mAj-\- 


LITTLE    FOXES. 


Bf 


CHRISTOPHER    CROWFIELD, 

AUTHOR    OF    "HOUSE    AND    HOME    PAPERS." 


EIGHTEENTH  EDITION. 


BOSTON : 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY. 

(pe  Htoersfte  Press,  dDambrtfJjre. 

1884. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1865,  by 

HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWF, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  tne  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachoaettt 


<\ 


CONTENTS. 

t 

Page 

I.   Fault-Finding 7 

II.   Irritability 53 

III.  Repression 91 

IV.  Persistence 133 

V.   Intolerance 176 

VI.  Discourtesy 218 

VII.    EXACTINGNESS 249 


M500H8 


LITTLE    FOXES. 


I. 

FAULT-FINDING. 

"  T)APA,  what  are  you  going  to  give  us 
this  winter  for  our  evening  readings?" 
said  Jennie. 

"  I  am  thinking,  for  one  thing,"  I  replied, 
"of  preaching  a  course  of  household  sermons 
from  a  very  odd  text  prefixed  to  a  discourse 
which  I  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  pamphlet- 
barrel  in  the  garret." 

"Don't  say  sermon,  Papa,  —  it  has  such  a 
dreadful  sound ;  and  on  winter  evenings  one 
wants  something  entertaining." 

"Well,  treatise,  then,"  said  I,  "or  discourse, 
or  essay,  or  prelection ;  I  'm  not  particulai 
as  to  words.* 


8  Little  Foxes. 

"  But  what  is  the  queer  text  that  you  found 
at  the  bottom  of  the  pamphlet-barrel  ? " 

"  It  was  one  preached  upon  by  your  moth- 
er's great-great-grandfather,  the  very  savory 
and  much-respected  Simeon  Shuttleworth,  'on 
the  occasion  of  the  melancholy  defections  and 
divisions  among  the  godly  in  the  town  of  West 
Dofield ' ;  and  it  runs  thus,  — '  Take  ns  the 
foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that  spoil  the  vines :  for 
our  vines  have  tender  grapes!  " 

"  It 's  a  curious  text  enough ;  but  I  can't 
imagine  what  you  are   going  to  make  of  it." 

"  Simply  an  essay  on  Little  Foxes,"  said  I , 
"  by  which  I  mean  those  unsuspected,  unwatched, 
insignificant  little  causes,  that  nibble  away  do- 
mestic happiness,  and  make  home  less  than  so 
noble  an  institution  should  be. 

"  You  may  build  beautiful,  convenient,  attrac- 
tive houses,  —  you  may  hang  the  walls  with 
lovely  pictures  and  stud  them  with  gems  of  Art ; 
and  there  may  be  living  there  together  persons 
bound  by  blood  and  affection  m  one   common 


Fault-Finding.  9 

interest,  leading  a  life  common  to  themselves 
and  apart  from  others  ;  and  these  persons  may 
each  one  of  them  be  possessed  of  good  and  noble 
traits  ;  there  may  be  a  common  basis  of  affec- 
tion, of  generosity,  of  good  principle,  of  religion  ; 
and  yet,  through  the  influence  of  some  of  these 
perverse,  nibbling,  insignificant  little  foxes,  half 
the  clusters  of  happiness  on  these  so  promising 
vines  may  fail  to  come  to  maturity.  A  little 
community  of  people,  all  of  whom  would  be  will- 
ing to  die  for  each  other,  may  not  be  able  to 
live  happily  together ;  that  is,  they  may  have 
far  less  happiness  than  their  circumstances,  their 
fine  and  excellent  traits,  entitle  them  to  expect. 

"  The  reason  for  this  in  general  is  that  home 
is  a  place  not  only  of  strong  affections,  but  of 
entire  unreserves  ;  it  is  life's  undress  rehearsal, 
its  back-room,  its  dressing-room,  from  which  we 
go  forth  to  more  careful  and  guarded  inter- 
course, leaving  behind  us  much  debris  of  cast- 
off  and  every-day  clothing.  Hence  has  arisen 
the  common  proverb,  '  No  man  is  a  hero  to  his 
1* 


10  Little  Foxes. 

valet-de-chambre* ;  and  the  common  warning, 
'  If  you  wish  to  keep  your  friend,  don't  go  and 
live  with  him.' " 

"  Which  is  only  another  way  of  saying,"  said 
my  wife,  "  that  we  are  all  human  and  imperfect ; 
and  the  nearer  you  get  to  any  human  being,  the 
more  defects  you  see.  The  characters  that  can 
stand  the  test  of  daily  intimacy  are  about  as 
numerous  as  four-leaved  clovers  in  a  meadow ; 
in  general,  those  who  do  not  annoy  you  with 
positive  faults  bore  you  with  their  insipidity. 
The  evenness  and  beauty  of  a  strong,  well-de- 
fined nature,  perfectly  governed  and  balanced, 
is  about  the  last  thing  one  is  likely  to  meet  with 
in  one's  researches  into  life." 

"  But  what  I  have  to  say,"  replied  I,  "  is  this, 
—  that,  family-life  being  a  state  of  unreserve,  a 
state  in  which  there  are  few  of  those  barriers 
and  veils  that  keep  people  in  the  world  from 
seeing  each  other's  defects  and  mutually  jarring 
and  grating  upon  each  other,  it  is  remarkable 
that  it  is  entered  upon  and  maintained  generally 


Fanlt-Fiiidino,  \  \ 


'£> 


with  less  reflection,  less  care  and  forethought, 
than  pertain  to  most  kinds  of  business  which 
men  and  women  set  their  hands  to.  A  mar 
does  not  undertake  to  run  an  engine  or  manage 
a  piece  of  machinery  without  some  careful  ex- 
amination of  its  parts  and  capabilities,  and  some 
inquiry  whether  he  have  the  necessary  knowl- 
eige,  skill,  and  strength  to  make  it  do  itself 
and  him  justice.  A  man  does  not  try  to  play  on 
the  violin  without  seeing  if  his  fingers  are  long 
and  flexible  enough  to  bring  out  the  harmonies 
and  raise  his  performance  above  the  grade  of 
dismal  scraping  to  that  of  divine  music.  What 
should  we  think  of  a  man  who  should  set  a 
whole  orchestra  of  instruments  upon  playing 
together  without  the  least  provision  or  fore- 
thought as  to  their  chord,  and  then  howl  and 
tear  his  hair  at  the  result  ?  It  is  not  the  fault 
of  the  instruments  that  they  grate  harsh  thun- 
ders together  ;  they  may  each  be  noble  and  of 
celestial  temper  ;  but  united  without  regard  to 
their  nature,  dire  confusion  is  the  result.     Still 


12  Little  Foxes. 

worse  were  it,  if  a  man  werr  supposed  so  utupid 
as  to  expect  of  each  instrument  a  role  opposed 
to  its  nature,  —  if  he  asked  of  the  octave-flute  i 
bass  solo,  and  condemned  the  trombone  because 
it  could  not  do  the  work  of  the  many-voiced 
violin. 

"  Yet  just  so  carelessly  is  the  work  of  forming 
a  family  often  performed.  A  man  and  womai 
come  together  from  some  affinity,  some  partia\ 
accord  of  their  nature  which  has  inspired  mu- 
tual affection.  There  is  generally  very  little 
careful  consideration  of  who  and  what  they  are 
—  no  thought  of  the  reciprocal  influence  of  mu- 
tual traits,  —  no  previous  chording  and  testing 
of  the  instruments  which  are  to  make  lifelong 
harmony  or  discord,  —  and  after  a  short  period 
of  engagement,  in  which  all  their  mutual  rela 
tions  are  made  as  opposite  as  possible  to  those 
which  must  follow  marriage,  these  two  furnish 
meir  house  and  begin  life  together. 

"Then  in  many  cases   the   domestic   roof  is 
supposed   at   once  to  be  the  proper  refuge  for 


Fault- Finding.  1 3 

dilations  and  friends  on  both  sides,  who  also  are. 
introduced  into  the  interior  concert  without  any 
special  consideration  of  what  is  likely  to  be  the 
operation  of  character  on  character,  the  play  of 
instrument  with  instrument ;  —  then  follow  chil- 
dren, each  of  whom  is  a  separate  entity,  a  sepa- 
rate will,  a  separate  force  in  the  circle  ;  and 
thus,  with  the  lesser  powers  of  servants  and 
dependants,  a  family  is  made  up.  And  there- 
is  no  wonder  if  all  these  chance-assorted  instru- 
ments, playing  together,  sometimes  make  quite 
as  much  discord  as  harmony.  For  if  the  hus- 
band and  wife  chord,  the  wife's  sister  or  hus- 
band's mother  may  introduce  a  discord ;  and 
then  again,  each  child  of  marked  character  in- 
troduces another  possibility  of  confusion. 

"  The  conservative  forces  of  human  nature 
are  so  strong  and  so  various,  that  with  all  these 
drawbacks  the  family  state  is  after  all  the  best 
and  purest  happiness  that  earth  affords.  But 
then,  with  cultivation  and  care,  it  might  be  a 
great  deal  happier.     Very  fair  pears  have  beep 


[4  Little  Foxes. 

raised  by  dropping  a  seed  into  a  good  soil  and 
letting  it  alone  foi  years ;  but  finer  and  choicer 
are  raised  by  the  watchings,  tendings,  primings 
of  the  gardener.  Wild  grape-vines  bore  very 
fine  grapes,  and  an  abundance  of  them,  before 
our  friend  Dr.  Grant  took  up  his  abode  at  Iona, 
and,  studying  the  laws  of  Nature,  conjured  up 
new  species  of  rarer  fruit  and  flavor  out  of  the 
old.  And  so,  if  all  the  little  foxes  that  infest 
our  domestic  vine  and  fig-tree  were  once  hunted 
out  and  killed,  we  might  have  fairer  clusters 
and  fruit  all  winter." 

"But,  Papa,"  said  Jennie,  "to  come  to  the 
foxes ;   let 's  know  what  they  are." 

"Well,  as  the  text  says,  little  foxes,  the  pet 
foxes  of  good  people,  unsuspected  little  ani- 
mals, —  on  the  whole,  often  thought  to  be  really 
creditable  little  beasts,  that  may  do  good,  and 
at  all  events  cannot  do  much  harm.  And  as  I 
have  taken  to  the  Puritanic  order  in  my  dis- 
course, I  shall  set  them  in  sevens,  as  Noah  did 
his   clean   beasts   in  the  ark.     Now   my  seven 


Fault-Finding.  1 1 

little  foxes  are  these  :  —  Fault-Finding,  Intoler- 
ance, Reticence,  Irritability,  Exactingness,  Dis- 
courtesy, Self-Will.  And  here,"  turning  to  my 
sermon,  "is  what  I  have  to  say  about  the  first 
of  them." 

FA  ULT-FINDING,— 

A  most  respectable  little  animal,  that  many 
people  let  run  freely  among  their  domestic 
vines,  under  the  notion  that  he  helps  the 
growth  of  the  grapes,  and  is  the  principal 
means  of  keeping  them  in  order. 

Now  it  may  safely  be  set  down  as  a  maxim, 
that  nobody  likes  to  be  found  fault  with,  but 
everybody  likes  to  find  fault  when  things  do 
not  suit  him. 

Let  my  courteous  reader  ask  him  or  herself 
if  he  or  she  does  not  experience  a  relief  and 
pleasure  in  finding  fault  with  or  about  what- 
ever troubles  them. 

This  appears  at  first  sight  an  anomaly  in 
the   provisions   of    Nature.     Generally  we   are 


1 6  Little  Foxes. 

so  constituted  that  what  it  is  a  pleasure  to  us 
to  do  it  is  a  pleasure  to  our  neighbor  to  hav* 
us  do.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  give,  and  a  pleasure 
to  receive.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  love,  and  a  plea* 
ure  to  be  loved ;  a  pleasure  to  admire,  a  pleas- 
ure to  be  admired.  It  is  a  pleasure  also  tc 
find  fault,  but  not  a  pleasure  to  be  found  fauh 
with.  Furthermore,  those  people  whose  sensi- 
tiveness of  temperament  leads  them  to  find  the 
most  fault  are  precisely  those  who  can  least 
bear  to  be  found  fault  with  ;  they  bind  heavy 
burdens  and  grievous  to  be  borne,  and  lay  them 
on  other  men's  shoulders,  but  they  themselves 
cannot  bear  the  weight  of  a  finger. 

Now  the  difficulty  in  the  case  is  this :  There 
are  things  in  life  that  need  to  be  altered ;  and 
that  things  may  be  altered,  they  must  be  spoken 
of  to  the  people  whose  business  it  is  to  make 
the  change.  This  opens  wide  the  door  of 
fault-finding  to  well-disposed  people,  and  gives 
them  latitude  of  conscience  to  impose  on  their 
fellows   all   the   annoyances   which    they  them- 


Fault-Finding.  ij 

selves  feel.  The  father  and  mother  of  a  family 
are  fault-finders,  ex  officio ;  and  to  them  flows 
back  the  tide  of  every  separate  individual's  com 
plaints  in  the  domestic  circle,  till  often  the 
whole  air  of  the  house  is  chilled  and  darkened 
by  a  drizzling  Scotch  mist  of  querulousness. 
Very  bad  are  these  mists  for  grape-vines,  and 
produce  mildew  in  many  a  fair  cluster. 

Enthusius  falls  in  love  with  Hermione,  be- 
cause she  looks  like  a  moonbeam,  —  because 
she  is  ethereal  as  a  summer  cloud,  spirituelle. 
He  commences  forthwith  the  perpetual  adora- 
tion system  that  precedes  marriage.  He  as- 
sures her  that  she  is  too  good  for  this  world, 
too  delicate  and  fair  for  any  of  the  uses  of  poor 
mortality,  —  that  she  ought  to  tread  on  roses, 
sleep  on  the  clouds,  —  that  she  ought  never  to 
shed  a  tear,  know  a  fatigue,  or  make  an  exer- 
tion, but  live  apart  in  some  bright,  ethereal 
sphere  worthy  of  her  charms.  All  which  is 
duly  chanted  in  her  ear  in  moonlight  walks  or 
sails,  and  so  often  repeated  that  a  sensible  girl 


1 8  Little  Foxes. 

may  be  excused  for  believing  that  a  little  of  it 
may  be  true. 

Now  comes  marriage,  —  and  it  turns  out  that 
Enthusius  is  very  particular  as  to  his  coffee, 
that  he  is  excessively  disturbed  if  his  meals 
are  at  all  irregular,  and  that  he  cannot  be  com- 
fortable with  any  table  arrangements  which  do 
not  resemble  those  of  his  notable  mother,  lately 
deceased  in  the  odor  of  sanctity ;  he  also  wants 
his  house  in  perfect  order  at  all  hours.  Still 
he  does  not  propose  to  provide  a  trained  house- 
keeper ;  it  is  all  to  be  effected  by  means  of  cer- 
tain raw  Irish  girls,  under  the  superintendence 
of  this  angel  who  was  to  tread  on  roses,  sleep 
on  clouds,  and  never  know  an  earthly  care. 
Neither  has  Enthusius  ever  considered  it  a 
part  of  a  husband's  duty  to  bear  personal  in- 
conveniences in  silence.  He  would  freely  shed 
his  blood  for  Hermione,  —  nay,  has  often  franti- 
cally proposed  the  same  in  the  hours  of  court- 
ship, when  of  course  nobody  wanted  it  done, 
and   it   could  answer  no  manner   of  use ;   but 


Fault-Finding.  ig 

now  to  the  idyllic  dialogues  of  that  period 
succeed  such  as  these :  — 

"  My  dear,  this  tea  is  smoked :  can't  you  get 
Jane  into  the  way  of  making  it  better  ? " 

"  My  dear,  I  have  tried ;  but  she  will  not 
do  as  I  tell  her." 

"Well,  all  I  know  is,  other  people  can  have 
good  tea,  and  I  should  think  we  might." 

And  again  at  dinner:  — 

"  My  dear,  this  mutton  is  overdone  again ; 
it  is  always  overdone." 

"Not  always,  dear,  because  you  recollect  on 
Monday  you  said  it  was  just  right." 

"Well,  almost  always." 

"Well,  my  dear,  the  reason  to-day  was,  I 
had  company  in  the  parlor,  and  could  not  go 
out  to  caution  Bridget,  as  I  generally  do.  It 's 
very  difficult  to  get  things  done  with  such  a 
girl." 

"My  mother's  things  were  always  well  done, 
no  matter  what  her  girl  was." 

Again :   "  Mv  dear,  you  must  speak   to  the 


2G  Little  Foxes. 

servants  about  wasting  the  coal.  I  never  saw 
such  a  consumption  of  fuel  in  a  family  of  our 
size "  ;  or,  "  My  dear,  how  can  you  let  Maggie 
tear  the  morning  paper  ? "  or,  "  My  dear,  I  shall 
actually  have  to  give  up  coming  to  dinner,  if 
my  dinners  cannot  be  regular";  or,  "My  dear, 
I  wish  you  would  look  at  the  way  my  shirts 
are  ironed,  —  it  is  perfectly  scandalous";  or, 
"My  dear,  you  must  not  let  Johnnie  finger  the 
mirror  in  the  parlor";  or,  "My  dear,  you  must 
stop  the  children  from  playing  in  the  garret "  , 
or,  "  My  dear,  you  must  see  that  Maggie  does  n't 
leave  the  mat  out  on  the  railing  when  she 
sweeps  the  front  hall";  and  so  on.  up  stairs 
and  down  stairs,  in  the  lady's  chamber,  in  attic, 
garret,  and  cellar,  "my  dear"  is  to  see  that 
nothing  goes  wrong,  and  she  is  found  fault 
with  when  anything  does. 

Yet  Enthusius,  when  occasionally  he  finds 
his  sometime  angel  in  tears,  and  she  tells  him 
he  does  not  love  her  as  he  once  did,  repudi- 
ates the  charge  with  all  his  heart,  and  declares 


Fault-Finding.  2 1 


'£> 


he  loves  her  more  than  ever,  —  and  perhaps 
he  does.  The  only  difficulty  is  that  she  has 
passed  out  of  the  plane  of  moonshine  and  po- 
etry into  that  of  actualities.  While  she  was 
considered  an  angel,  a  star,  a  bird,  an  evening 
cloud,  of  course  there  was  nothing  to  be  found 
fault  with  in  her ;  but  now  that  the  angel  has 
become  chief  business-partner  in  an  earthly 
working  firm,  relations  are  different.  Enthu- 
sius  could  say  the  same  things  over  again  under 
the  same  circumstances,  but  unfortunately  now 
they  never  are  in  the  same  circumstances.  En- 
thusius  is  simply  a  man  who  is  in  the  habit 
of  speaking  from  impulse,  and  saying  a  thing 
merely  and  only  because  he  feels  it  at  the  mo- 
ment. Before  marriage  he  worshipped  and 
adored  his  wife  as  an  ideal  being  dwelling  in 
the  land  of  dreams  and  poetries,  and  did  his 
very  best  to  make  her  unpractical  and  unfitted 
to  enjoy  the  life  to  which  he  was  to  introduce 
her  after  marriage.  After  marriage  he  still 
yields  unreflectingly  to  present  impulses,  which 


22  Little  Foxes. 

are  no  longer  to  praise,  but  to  criticise  and 
condemn.  The  very  sensibility  to  beauty  and 
love  of  elegance,  which  made  him  admire  her 
before  marriage,  now  transferred  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  domestic  menage,  lead  him  daily 
to  perceive  a  hundred  defects  and  find  a  hun- 
dred annoyances. 

Thus  far  we  suppose  an  amiable,  submissive 
wife,  who  is  only  grieved,  not  provoked,  —  who 
has  no  sense  of  injustice,  and  meekly  strives  to 
make  good  the  hard  conditions  of  her  lot.  Such 
poor,  little,  faded  women  have  we  seen,  looking 
for  all  the  world  like  plants  that  have  been 
nursed  and  forced  into  bloom  in  the  steam-heat 
of  the  conservatory,  and  are  now  sickly  and 
yellow,  dropping  leaf  by  leaf,  in  the  dry,  dusty 
parlor. 

But  there  is  another  side  of  the  picture,  — 
where  the  wife,  provoked  and  indignant,  takes 
up  the  fault-finding  trade  in  return,  and  with 
the  keen  arrows  of  her  woman's  wit  searches 
tnd   penetrates    every  joint    of    the   husband's 


Fault-Finding.  23 

armor,  showing   herself  full  as   unjust  and   far 
more  capable  in  this  sort  of  conflict 

Saddest  of  all  sad  things  is  it  to  see  two 
once  very  dear  friends  employing  all  that  pe- 
culiar knowledge  of  each  other  which  love 
had  given  them  only  to  harass  and  provoke,  — 
thrusting  and  piercing  with  a  certainty  of  aim 
that  only  past  habits  of  confidence  and  affec- 
tion could  have  put  in  their  power,  wounding 
their  own  hearts  with  every  deadly  thrust  they 
make  at  one  another,  and  all  for  such  inexpres 
sibly  miserable  trifles  as  usually  form  the  open- 
ings of  fault-finding  dramas. 

For  the  contentions  that  loosen  the  very 
foundations  of  love,  that  crumble  away  all  its 
fine  traceries  and  carved  work,  about  what  mis- 
erable, worthless  things  do  they  commonly  be- 
gin !  —  a  dinner  underdone,  too  much  oil  con- 
sumed, a  newspaper  torn,  a  waste  of  coal  or 
soap,  a  dish  broken !  —  and  for  this  miserable 
sort  of  trash,  very  good,  very  generous,  very 
religious  people  will  sometimes  waste  and  throw 


24  Little  Foxes. 

away  by  double-handfuls  the  very  thing  for 
which  houses  are  built  and  coal  burned,  and 
all  the  paraphernalia  of  a  home  established,  — 
their  happiness.  Better  cold  coffee,  smoky  tea, 
burnt  meat,  better  any  inconvenience,  any  loss, 
than  a  loss  of  love  ;  and  nothing  so  surely  burns 
away  love  as  constant  fault-finding. 

For  fault-finding  once  allowed  as  a  habit  be 
tween  two  near  and  dear  friends  comes  in  time 
to    establish   a   chronic   soreness,    so   that    the 
mildest,   the   most    reasonable   suggestion,    the 
gentlest  implied  reproof,  occasions  burning  irri 
tation  :   and  when  this  morbid  stage  has  once 
set   in,  the   restoration  of  love  seems  wellnigl 
impossible. 

For  example :  Enthusius,  having  risen  this 
morning  in  the  best  of  humors,  in  the  most 
playful  tones  begs  Hermione  not  to  make  the 
tails  of  her  g's  quite  so  long  ;  and  Hermione 
fires  up  with  — 

"  And,  pray,  what  else  would  n't  you  wish 
me  to  do  ?     Perhaps   you   would   be   s<"    ^ood, 


Fault-Finding.  25 

when  vou  have  leisure,  as  to  make  out  an 
alphabetical  list  of  the  things  in  me  that  need 
correcting." 

"  My  dear,  you  are  unreasonable." 
w  I  don't  think  so.     I  should  like  to  get  to 
the  end   of  the   requirements  of  my  lord   and 
master  sometimes." 

"  Now,  my  dear,  you  really  are  very  silly." 
"  Please  say  something  original,  my  dear.     I 
have   heard  that  till  it  has  lost  the  charm   oi 
novelty." 

"  Come  now,  He'  mione,  don't  let 's  quarrel." 
"  My  dear  sir,  who  thinks  of  quarrelling  ?  No* 
I  ;  I  'm  sure  I  was  only  asking  to  be  directed. 
I  trust  some  time,  if  I  live  to  be  ninety,  to  suit 
your  fastidious  taste.  I  trust  the  coffee  is  right 
mis  morning,  and  the  tea,  and  the  toast,  and 
the  steak,  and  the  servants,  and  the  front-hall 
mat,  and  the  upper-story  hall-door,  and  the  base- 
ment premises  ;  and  now  I  suppose  I  am  U: 
be  trained  in  respect  to  my  general  education. 
I  shall  set  about  the  tails  of  my  g's  at  once,  but 
2 


26  Little  Foxes. 

trust  you  will  prepare  a  list  of  any  othei  little 
things  that  need  emendation." 

Enthusius  pushes  away  his  coffee,  and  diums 
on  the  table. 

"  If  I  might  be  allowed  one  small  criticism,, 
my  dear,  I  should  observe  that  it  is  not  good 
manners  to  drum  on  the  table,"  says  his  fair 
opposite. 

"  Hermione,  you  are  enough  to  drive  a  man 
frantic ! "  exclaims  Enthusius,  rushing  out  with 
bitterness  in  his  soul,  and  a  determination  to 
take  his  dinner  at  Delmonico's. 

Enthusius  feels  himself  an  abused  man,  and 
thinks  there  never  was  such  a  sprite  of  a  wo- 
man, —  the  most  utterly  unreasonable,  pro- 
voking human  being  he  ever  met  with.  What 
he  does  not  think  of  is,  that  it  is  his  own  incon- 
siderate, constant  fault-finding  that  has  made 
every  nerve  so  sensitive  and  sore,  that  the 
mildest  suggestion  of  advice  or  reproof  on  the 
most  indiffci f»:;i  subject  is  impossible.  He  has 
not,  to  be  sure,  been  the  guilty  partner  in  tb'r 


Fault-Findmg.  27 

morning's  encounter ;  he  has  said  only  what 
is  fair  and  proper,  and  she  has  been  unreason- 
able and  cross  ;  but,  after  all,  the  fault  is  re- 
motely his. 

When  Enthusius  awoke,  after  marriage,  to 
find  in  his  Hermione  in  very  deed  only  a  bird, 
a  star,  a  flowei,  but  no  housekeeper,  why  did  he 
not  face  the  matter  like  an  honest  man  ?  Why 
did  he  not  remember  all  the  fine  things  about 
dependence  and  uselessness  with  which  he  had 
been  filling  her  head  for  a  year  or  two,  and  in 
common  honesty  exact  no  more  from  her  than 
he  had  bargained  for  ?  Can  a  bird  make  a 
good  business-manager  ?  Can  a  flower  oversee 
Biddy  and  Mike,  and  impart  to  theii  'mcircum- 
cised  ears  the  high  crafts  and  mysteries  of  ele- 
gant housekeeping  ? 

If  his  little  wife  has  to  learn  her  domestic 
role  of  household  duty,  as  most  girls  do,  by  a 
thousand  mortifications,  a  thousand  perplexities, 
a  thousand  failures,  let  him,  in  ordinary  fair- 
ness, make  it  as  easy  to  her  as  possible.     Let 


28  Little  Foxes. 

him  remember  with  what  admiring  smiles,  be- 
fore marriage,  he  received  her  pretty  professions 
of  utter  helplessness  and  incapacity  in  domestic 
matters,  finding  only  poetry  and  grace  in  what, 
after  marriage,  proved  an  annoyance. 

And  if  a  man  finds  that  he  has  a  wife  ill 
adapted  to  wifely  duties,  does  it  follow  that  the 
best  thing  he  can  do  is  to  blurt  out,  without 
form  or  ceremony,  all  the  criticisms  and  cor- 
rections which  may  occur  to  him  in  the  many 
details  of  household  life  ?  He  would  not  dare 
to  speak  with  as  little  preface,  apology,  or  cir- 
cumlocution to  his  business  manager,  to  his 
butcher,  or  his  baker.  When  Enthusius  was  a 
bachelor,  he  never  criticised  the  table  at  his 
boarding-house  without  some  reflection,  and 
studying  to  take  unto  himself  acceptable  words 
whereby  to  soften  the  asperity  of  the  criticism. 
The  laws  of  society  require  that  a  man  should 
qualify,  soften,  and  wisely  time  his  admonitions 
to  those  he  meets  in  the  outer  world,  or  they 
will  turn  again  and  rend  him.     But  to  his  own 


Fault-Finding.  29 

wife,  in  his  own  house  and  home,  he  can  find 
fault  without  ceremony  or  softening.  So  he 
can  ;  and  he  can  awake,  in  the  course  of  a 
year  or  two,  to  find  his  wife  a  changed  woman, 
and  his  home  unendurable.  He  may  find,  too, 
that  unceremonious  fault-finding  is  a  game  that 
two  can  play  at,  and  that  a  woman  can  shoot 
her  arrows  with  far  more  precision  and  skill 
than   a   man. 

But  the  fault  lies  not  always  on  the  side  of 
the  husband.  Quite  as  often  is  a  devoted,  pa- 
tient, good-tempered  man  harassed  and  hunted 
and  baited  by  the  inconsiderate  fault-finding  of 
a  wife  whose  principal  talent  seems  to  lie  in  the 
ability  at  first  glance  to  discover  and  make 
manifest  the  weak  point  in  everything. 

We  have  seen  the  most  generous,  the  most 
warm-hearted  and  obliging  of  mortals,  under 
this  sort  of  training,  made  the  most  morose 
and  disobliging  of  husbands.  Sure  to  be  found 
fault  with,  whatever  they  do,  they  have  at  last 
ceased  doing.  The  disappointment  of  not  pl^n 
ing  they  have  abated  by  not  trying  to  pleast 


30  Little  Foxes. 

We  once  knew  a  man  who  married  a  spoiled 
beauty,  whose  murmurs,  exactions,  and  caprices 
were  infinite.  He  had  at  last,  as  a  refuge  to 
his  wearied  nerves,  settled  down  into  a  habit 
of  utter  disregard  and  neglect ;  he  treated  her 
wishes  and  her  complaints  with  equal  indiffer- 
ence, and  went  on  with  his  life  as  nearly  as 
possible  as  if  she  did  not  exist.  He  silently 
provided  for  her  what  he  thought  proper,  with- 
out troubling  himself  to  notice  her  requests  or 
listen  to  h>  r  grievances.  Sickness  came,  but 
the  heart  of  her  husband  was  cold  and  gone  ; 
there  was  ro  sympathy  left  to  warm  her.  Death 
came,  and  he  breathed  freely  as  a  man  re- 
leased. He  married  again,  —  a  woman  with  no 
beauty,  but  much  love  and  goodness,  —  a  wo- 
man who  a^ked  little,  blamed  seldom,  and  then 
with  all  tL<,  tact  and  address  which  the  utmost 
thoughtful  tess  could  devise  ;  and  the  passive, 
negligent  husband  became  the  attentive,  devot- 
ed slave  A  her  will.  He  was  in  her  hands 
»*    clay    ?.n    the    hands    of   the    potter  •     the 


v 


Fault-Finding.  3 1 

least  breath  or  suggestion  of  criticism  from  her 
lips,  who  criticised  so  little  and  so  thoughtfully, 
weighed  more  with  him  than  many  outspoken 
words.  So  different  is  the  same  human  being, 
according  to  the  touch  of  the  hand  which  plays 
upon  him  ! 

I  have  spoken  hitherto  of  fault-finding  as 
between  husband  and  wife :  its  consequences 
are  even  worse  as  respects  children.  The  habit 
once  suffered  to  grow  up  between  the  two  that 
constitute  the  head  of  the  family  descends  and 
runs  through  all  the  branches.  Children  are 
more  hurt  by  indiscriminate,  thoughtless  fault- 
finding than  by  any  other  one  thing.  Often  a 
child  has  all  the  sensitiveness  and  all  the  sus- 
ceptibility of  a  grown  person,  added  to  the 
faults  of  childhood.  Nothing  about  him  is 
right  as  yet ;  he  is  immature  and  faulty  at  all 
points,  and  everybody  feels  at  perfect  liberty 
to  criticise  him  to  right  and  left,  above,  below, 
and  around,  till  he  takes  refuge  either  in  cal- 
lous hardness  or  irritable  moroseness. 


32  Little  Foxes. 

A  bright,  noisy  boy  rushes  in  from  school, 
eager  to  tell  his  mother  something  he  has  on 
his  heart,  and  Number  One  cries  out,  —  "O, 
you  've  left  the  door  open !  I  do  wish  you 
would  n't  always  leave  the  door  open  !  And  do 
look  at  the  mud  on ,  your  shoes !  How  many 
times  must   I  tell  you  to  wipe   your  feet?" 

"Now  there  you've  thrown  your  cap  on  the 
sofa  again.  When  will  you  learn  to  hang  it 
up?" 

"  Don't  put  your  slate  there ;  that  is  n't  the 
place  for  it." 

"  How  dirty  your  hands  are !  what  have  you 
been  doing?" 

"Don't  sit  in  that  chair;  you  break  the 
springs,  jouncing." 

"  Child,  how  your  hair  looks !  Do  go  up 
stairs  and  comb  it." 

"There,  if  you  haven't  torn  the  braid  all 
off  your  coat !     Dear  me,  what  a  boy  ! " 

"  Don't  speak  so  loud ;  yo  ar  voice  goes 
through  my  head." 


Fault-Finding.  33 

"I  want  to  know,  Jim,  if  it  was  you  that 
broke  up  that  barrel  that  I  have  been  saving 
for  brown  flour." 

"I  believe  it  was  you,  Jim,  that  hacked  the 
edge  of  my  razor." 

"  Jim  's  been  writing  at  my  desk,  and  blotted 
three  sheets  of  the  best  paper." 

Now  the  question  is,  if  any  of  the  grown 
people  of  the  family  had  to  run  the  gantlet  of 
a  string  of  criticisms  on  themselves  equally 
true  as  those  that  salute  unlucky  Jim,  would 
they  be  any  better-natured  about  it  than  he  is  ? 

No ;  but  they  are  grown-up  people ;  they 
have  rights  that  others  are  bound  to  respect. 
Everybody  cannot  tell  them  exactly  what  he 
thinks  about  everything  they  do.  If  every  one 
could  and  did,  would  there  not  be  terrible  re- 
actions ? 

Servants  in  general   are  only  grown-up  chil- 
dren,  and   the    same    considerations    apply   to 
them.     A  raw,  untrained  Irish   girl  introduced 
into  an  elegan\  house  has  her  head  bewildered 
2*  © 


34  Little  Foxes. 

:n  every  direction.  There  are  the  gas-pipes, 
the  watei  -pipes,  the  whole  paraphernalia  of  ele- 
gant and  delicate  conveniences,  about  which  a 
thousand  little  details  are  to  be  learned,  the 
neglect  of  any  one  of  which  may  flood  the 
house,  or  poison  it  with  foul  air,  or  bring  innu- 
merable inconveniences.  The  setting  of  a  gen- 
teel table  and  the  waiting  upon  it  involve  fifty 
possibilities  of  mistake,  each  one  of  which  will 
grate  on  the  nerves  of  a  whole  family.  There 
is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  occasions  of  fault- 
finding in  families  are  so  constant  and  harass- 
ing ;  and  there  is  no  wonder  that  mistress  and 
rnaid  often  meet  each  other  on  the  terms  of 
the  bear  and  the  man  who  fell  together  fifty 
feet  down  from  the  limb  of  a  high  tree,  and 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  it,  looking  each  other  in 
the  face  in  helpless,  growling  despair.  The ' 
mistress  is  rasped,  irritated,  despairing,  and  with 
good  reason :  the  maid  is  the  same,  and  with 
equally  good  reason  Yet  let  the  mistress  be 
suddenly  introduced   into  a  printing-office,  and 


Faidt-Finding.  35 

required,  with  what  little  teaching  could  be 
given  her  in  a  few  rapid  directions,  to  set  up 
the  editorial  of  a  morning  paper,  and  it  is  prob- 
able she  would  be  as  stupid  and  bewildered  as 
Biddy  in  her  beautifully  arranged  house. 

There  are  elegant  houses  which,  from  causes- 
like  these,  are  ever  vexed  like  the  troubled  sea 
that  cannot  rest.  Literally,  their  table  has  be- 
come a  snare  before  them,  and  that  which 
should  have  been  for  their  welfare  a  trap. 
Their  gas  and  their  water  and  their  fire  and 
their  elegances  and  ornaments,  all  in  unskilled, 
blundering  hands,  seem  only  so  many  guns  in 
the  hands  of  Satan,  through  which  he  fires  at 
their  Christian  graces  day  and  night,  —  so  that, 
if  their  house  is  kept  in  order,  their  temper 
and  religion  are  not. 

I  am  speaking  now  to  the  consciousness  of 
thousands  of  women  who  are  in  will  and  pur- 
pose real  saints.  Their  souls  go  up  to  heaven, 
—  its  love,  its  purity,  its  rest,  —  with  every 
hymn   and   prayer   and   sacrament   in   church; 


36  Little  Foxes. 

and  they  come  home  to  be  mortified,  disgraced, 
and  made  to  despise  themselves,  for  the  un- 
lovely tempers,  the  hasty  words,  the  cross  looks, 
the  universal  nervous  irritability,  that  result 
from  this  constant  jarring  of  finely  toned  chords 
under  unskilled  hands. 

Talk  of  hair-cloth  shirts,  and  scourgings,  and 
sleeping  on  ashes,  as  means  of  saintship !  there 
is  no  need  of  them  in  our  country.  Let  a 
woman  once  look  at  her  domestic  trials  as  her 
hair-cloth,  her  ashes,  her  scourges,  —  accept 
them,  —  rejoice  in  them,  —  smile  and  be  quiet, 
silent,  patient,  and  loving  under  them,  —  and 
the  convent  can  teach  her  no  more ;  she  is  a 
victorious  saint. 

When  the  damper  of  the  furnace  is  turned 
the  wrong  way  by  Paddy,  after  the  five  hun- 
dredth time  of  explanation,  and  the  whole  fam- 
ily awakes  coughing,  sneezing,  strangling, — . 
when  the  gas  is  blown  out  in  the  nursery  by 
Biddy,  who  has  been  instructed  every  day  for 
weeks  in  the  danger  of  such  a  proceeding, — 


Fault-Finding.  37 

when  the  tumblers  on  the  dinner-table  are 
found  dim  and  streaked,  after  weeks  of  train- 
ing in  the  simple  business  of  washing  and  wip- 
ing,—  when  the  ivory-handled  knives  and  forks 
are  left  soaking  in  hot  dish-water,  after  inces- 
sant explanations  of  the  consequences,  —  when 
four  or  five  half-civilized  beings,  above,  below, 
and  all  over  the  house,  are  constantly  forget- 
ting the  most  important  things  at  the  very 
moment  it  is  most  necessary  they  should  re- 
member them,  —  there  is  no  hope  for  the  mis- 
tress morally,  unless  she  can  in  very  deed  and 
truth  accept  her  trials  religiously,  and  conquer 
by  accepting.  It  is  not  apostles  alone  who 
can  take  pleasure  in  necessities  and  distresses, 
but  mothers  and  housewives  also,  if  they  would 
learn  of  the  Apostle,  might  say,  "When  I  am 
weak,  then  am  I  strong." 

The  burden  ceases  to  gall  when  we  have 
learned  how  to  carry  it.  We  can  suffer  pa- 
tiently, if  we  see  any  good  come  of  it,  and 
say,  as   an   old  black  woman  of  our  acquaint 


3 8  Little  Foxes. 

ance  did  of  an  event  that  crossed  her  purpose, 
"  Well,  Lord,  if  it 's  you,  send  it  along." 

But  that  this  may  be  done,  that  home-life, 
in  our  unsettled,  changing  state  of  society,  may 
become  peaceful  and  restful,  there  is  one  Chris- 
tian grace,  much  treated  of  by  mystic  writers, 
that  must  return  to  its  honor  in  the  Christian 
Church.     I  mean,  —  the  grace  of  silence. 

No  words  can  express,  no  tongue  can  tell, 
the  value  of  not  speaking.  "Speech  is  sil- 
ver^, but  silence  is  golden,"  is  an  old  and  very 
precious  proverb. 

"But,"  say  many  voices,  "what  is  to  become 
of  us,  if  we  may  not  speak  ?  Must  we  not 
correct  our  children  and  our  servants  and  each 
other  ?  Must  we  let  people  go  on  doing  wrong 
to  the  end  of  the  chapter?" 

No ;  fault  must  be  found ;  faults  must  be 
told,  errors  corrected.  Reproof  and  admoni- 
tion are  duties  of  householders  to  their  fami- 
lies, and  of  all  true  friends  to  one  another. 

But,  gentle  reader,  let  us  look  over  life,  our 


Fault-Findi?ig.  39 

own  lives  and  the  lives  of  others,  and  ask,  How 
much  of  the  fault-finding  which  prevails  has  the 
least  tendency  to  do  any  good  ?  How  much  of 
ft  is  well-timed,  well-pointed,  deliberate,  and 
just,  so  spoken  as  to  be  effective  ? 

"A  wise  reprover  upon  an  obedient  ear"  is 
one  of  the  rare  things  spoken  of  by  Solomon, 
—  the  rarest,  perhaps,  to  be  met  with.  How 
many  really  religious  people  put  any  of  their 
religion  into  their  manner  of  performing  this 
most  difficult  office  ?  We  find  fault  with  a 
stove  or  furnace  which  creates  heat  only  to  go 
up  chimney  and  not  warm  the  house.  We  say 
it  is  wasteful.  Just  so  wasteful  often  seem 
prayer-meetings,  church-services,  and  sacra- 
ments ;  they  create  and  excite  lovely,  gentle, 
holy  feelings,  —  but,  if  these  do  not  pass  out 
into  the  atmosphere  of  daily  life,  and  warm  and 
clear  the  air  of  our  homes,  there  is  a  great 
waste  in  our  religion. 

We  have  been  on  our  knees,  confessing  hum- 
bly that  we  are  as  awkward  in   Aeavenly  things, 


40  Little  Foxes. 

as  unfit  for  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem,  as  Biddy 
and  Mike,  and  the  little  beggar-girl  on  our 
door-steps,  are  for  our  parlors.  We  have  de- 
plored our  errors  daily,  hourly,  and  confessed 
that  "  the  remembrance  of  them  is  grievous 
unto  us,  the  burden  of  them  is  intolerable,"  and 
then  we  draw  near  in  the  sacrament  to  that 
Incarnate  Divinity  whose  infinite  love  covers 
all  our  imperfection*  with  the  mantle  of  His 
perfections.  But  when  we  return,  do  we  take 
our  servants  and  children  by  the  throat  because 
they  are  as  untrained  and  awkward  and  care- 
less in  earthly  things  as  we  have  been  in  heav- 
enly ?  Does  no  remembrance  of  Christ's  infinite 
patience  temper  our  impatience,  when  we  have 
spoken  seventy  times  seven,  and  our  words  have 
been  disregarded  ?  There  is  no  mistake  as  to 
the  sincerity  of  the  religion  which  the  Church 
excites.  What  we  want  is  to  have  it  used  in 
common  life,  instead  of  going  up  like  hot  air 
in  a  fireplace  to  lose  itself  in  the  infinite  abysses 
above. 


Faidt-Finding.  41 

In  reproving  and  fault-finding,  we  have  beau- 
tiful examples  in  Holy  Writ.  When  Saint  Paul 
has  a  reproof  to  administer  to  delinquent  Chris- 
tians, how  does  he  temper  it  with  gentleness 
and  praise  !  how  does  he  first  make  honorable 
note  of  all  the  good  there  is  to  be  spoken  of! 
how  does  he  give  assurance  of  his  prayers  and 
love !  —  and  when  at  last  the  arrow  flies,  it 
goes  all  the  straighter  to  the  mark  for  this 
carefulness. 

But  there  was  a  greater,  a  purer,  a  lovelier 
than  Paul,  who  made  His  home  on  earth  with 
twelve  plain  men,  ignorant,  prejudiced,  slow  to 
learn,  —  and  who  to  the  very  day  of  His  death 
were  still  contending  on  a  point  which  He  had 
repeatedly  explained,  and  troubling  His  last 
earthly  hours  with  the  old  contest,  "Who  should 
be  greatest."  When  all  else  failed,  on  His  knees 
before  them  as  their  servant,  tenderly  perform- 
ing for  love  the  office  of  a  slave,  he  said,  "  If  I, 
your  Lord  and  Master,  have  washed  your  feet, 
ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet." 


42  Little  Foxes. 

When  parents,  employers,  and  masters  learn 
to  reprove  in  this  spirit,  reproofs  will  be  more 
effective  than  they  now  are.  It  was  by  the 
exercise  of  this  spirit  that  Fenelon  transformed 
the  proud,  petulant,  irritable,  selfish  Duke  of 
Burgundy,  making  him  humble,  gentle,  tolerant 
of  others,  and   severe  only   to  himself:   it  was 

he  who  had  for  his  motto,  that  "  Perfection 
alone  can  bear  with  imperfection." 

But  apart  from  the  fault-finding  which  has  a 
definite  aim,  how  much  is  there  that  does  not 
profess  or  intend  or  try  to  do  anything  more 
than  give  vent  to  an  irritated  state  of  feeling ! 
The  nettle  stings  us,  and  we  toss  it  with  both 
hands  at  our  neighbor ;  the  fire  burns  us,  and 
we  throw  coals  and  hot  ashes  at  all  and  sun- 
dry of  those  about  us. 

There  is  fretfulness,  a  mizzling,  drizzling  rain 
of  discomforting  remark  ;  there  is  grumblings 
a  northeast  storm  that  never  clears  ;  there  is 
scolding,  the  thunder-storm  with  lightning  and 
hail.     All  these  are  worse  than  useless  ;   they 


Fault-Finding.  43 

are  positive  sins,  by  whomsoever  indulged,  — 
sins  as  great  and  real  as  many  that  are  shud- 
dered at  in  polite  society. 

All  these  are  for  the  most  part  but  the  vent- 
ing on  our  fellow-beings  of  morbid  feelings  re- 
sulting from  dyspepsia,  overtaxed  nerves,  or 
general  ill  health. 

A  minister  eats  too  much  mince-pie,  goes  to 
nis  weekly  lecture,  and,  seeing  only  half  a  dozen 
people  there,  proceeds  to  grumble  at  those  half- 
dozen  for  the  sins  of  such  as  stay  away.  "  The 
Church  is  cold,  there  is  no  interest  in  religion," 
and  so  on :  a  simple  outpouring  of  the  blues. 

You  and  I  do  in  one  week  the  work  we 
ought  to  do  in  six ;  we  overtax  nerve  and  brain, 
and  then  have  weeks  of  darkness  in  which 
everything  at  home  seems  running  to  destruc- 
tion. The  servants  never  were  so  careless,  the 
children  never  so  noisy,  the  house  never  so 
disorderly,  the  State  never  so  ill-governed,  the 
Church  evidently  going  over  to  Antichrist. 
The  on/y  thing,  after  all,  in  wh'ch  the  existing 


44  Little  Foxes. 

condition  of  affairs  differs  from  that  of  a  week 
ago  is,  that  we  have  used  up  our  nervous  en- 
ergy, and  are  looking  at  the  world  through 
blue  spectacles.  We  ought  to  resist  the  devil 
of  fault-firding  at  this  point,  and  cultivate  si- 
lence as  a  grace  till  our  nerves  are  rested. 
There  are  times  when  no  one  should  trust 
himself  to  judge  his  neighbors,  or  reprove  his 
children  and  servants,  or  find  fault  with  his 
friends,  —  for  he  is  so  sharp-set  that  he  cannot 
strike  a  note  without  striking  too  hard.  Then 
is  the  time  to  try  the  grace  of  silence,  and, 
what  is  better  than  silence,  the  power  of 
prayer. 

But  it  being  premised  that  we  are  never  to 
fret,  never  to  grumble,  never  to  scold,  and  yet 
it  being  our  duty  in  some  way  to  make  known 
and  get  rectified  the  faults  of  others,  it  remains 
to  ask  how ;  and  on  this  head  we  will  impro- 
vise a  parable  of  two  women. 

Mrs.  Standfast  is  a  woman  of  high  tone,  and 
possessed  of  a  power  of  moral  principle  that 


Fault-Finding.  45 

impresses  one  even  as  sublime.  All  her  per- 
ceptions of  right  and  wrong  are  clear,  exact, 
and  minute  ;  she  is  charitable  to  the  poor,  kind 
to  the  sick  and  suffering,  and  devoutly  and 
earnestly  religious.  In  all  the  minutiae  of  wo- 
man s  life  she  manifests  an  inconceivable  pre- 
cision and  perfection.  Everything  she  does  is 
perfectly  done.  She  is  true  to  all  her  promises 
to  the  very  letter,  and  so  punctual  that  rail- 
road time  might  be  kept  by  her  instead  of  a 
chronometer, 

Yet,  with  all  these  excellent  traits,  Mrs.  Stand- 
fast has  not  the  faculty  of  making  a  happy 
home.  She  is  that  most  hopeless  of  fault-find- 
ers,—  a  fault-finder  from  principle.  She  has  a 
high,  correct  standard  for  everything  in  the 
world,  from  the  regulation  of  the  thoughts 
down  to  the  spreading  of  a  sheet  or  the  hem- 
ming of  a  towel ;  and  to  this  exact  standard 
she  feels  it  her  duty  to  bring  every  one  in  her 
household.  She  does  not  often  scold,  she  is 
not  actually  fretful,  but  she  exercises  over  her 


4.6  Little  Foxes. 

household  a  calm,  inflexible  severity,  rebuking 
every  fault ;  she  overlooks  nothing,  she  excuses 
nothing,  she  will  accept  of  nothing  in  any  part 
of  her  domain  but  absolute  perfection  ;  and  her 
reproofs  are  aimed  with  a  true  and  steady 
point,  and  sent  with  a  force  that  makes  them 
felt  by  the  most  obdurate. 

Hence,  though  she  is  rarely  seen  out  of  tem- 
per, and  seldom  or  never  scolds,  yet  she  drives 
every  one  around  her  to  despair  by  the  use  of 
the  calmest  and  most  elegant  English.  Her 
servants  fear,  but  do  not  love  her.  Her  hus- 
band, an  impulsive,  generous  man,  somewhat 
inconsiderate  and  careless  in  his  habits,  is  at 
times  perfectly  desperate  under  the  accumulat- 
ed load  of  her  disapprobation.  Her  children 
regard  her  as  inhabiting  some  high,  distant,  un- 
approachable mountain-top  of  goodness,  whence 
she  is  always  looking  down  with  reproving  eyes 
on  naughty  boys  and  girls.  They  wonder  how 
it  is  that  so  excellent  a  mamma  should  have 
children  who,  let  them  try  to  be  good  as  hard 


Fault-Finding.  47 

as  they  can,  are  always  sure  to  do  something 
dreadful  every  day. 

The  trouble  with  Mrs.  Standfast  is,  not  that 
she  has  a  high  standard,  and  not  that  she  pur- 
poses and  means  to  bring  every  one  up  to  it, 
but  that  she  does  not  take  the  right  way.  She 
has  set  it  down  in  her  mind  that  to  blame  a 
wrong-doer  is  the  only  way  to  cure  wrong. 
She  has  never  learned  that  it  is  as  much  her 
duty  to  praise  as  to  blame,  and  that  people  are 
drawn  to  do  right  by  being  praised  when  they 
do  it,  rather  than  driven  by  being  blamed  when 
they  do  not. 

Right  across  the  way  from  Mrs.  Standfast 
is  Mrs.  Easy,  a  pretty  little  creature,  with  not 
a  tithe  of  her  moral  worth,  —  a  merry,  pleas- 
ure-loving woman,  of  no  particular  force  of 
principle,  whose  great  object  in  life  is  to 
avoid  its  disagreeables  and  to  secure  its  pleas- 
ures. 

Little  Mrs.  Easy  is  adored  by  her  husband, 
her   children,   her  servants,   merely   because  it 


4-S  Little  Foxes. 

is  her  nature  to  say  pleasant  things  to  every 
one.  It  is  a  mere  tact  of  pleasing,  which  she 
uses  without  knowing  it.  While  Mrs.  Stand- 
fast, surveying  her  well-set  dining-table,  runs 
her  keen  eye  over  everything,  and  at  last 
brings  up  with,  "Jane,  look  at  that  black  spot 
on  the  salt-spoon !  I  am  astonished  at  your 
carelessness  ! "  —  Mrs.  Easy  would  say,  "  Why, 
Jane,  where  did  you  learn  to  set  a  table  so 
nicely  ?  All  looking  sautifully,  except,  —  ah  ! 
let's  see,  —  just  give  a  rub  to  this  salt-spoon  ;  — 
now  all  is  quite  perfect."  Mrs.  Standfast's  ser- 
vants and  children  hear  only  of  their  failures  ; 
these  are  always  before  them  and  her.  Mrs. 
Easy's  servants  hear  of  their  successes.  She 
praises  their  good  points ;  tells  them  they  are 
doing  well  in  this,  that,  and  the  other  partic- 
ular ;  and  finally  exhorts  them,  on  the  strength 
of  having  done  so  many  things  well,  to  im- 
prove in  what  is  yet  lacking.  Mrs.  Easy's 
husband  feels  that  he  is  always  a  hero  in  her 
eyes,  and  her  children  feel  that  they  are  dear 


Fault-Finding.  49 

good  children,  notwithstanding  Mrs.  Easy  some- 
times has  her  little  tiffs  of  displeasure,  and 
scolds  roundly  when  something  falls  out  as  it 
should  not. 

The  two  families  show  how  much  more  may 
be  done  by  a  very  ordinary  woman,  through 
the  mere  instinct  of  praising  and  pleasing, 
than  by  the  greatest  worth,  piety,  and  princi- 
ple, seeking  to  lift  human  nature  by  a  lever 
that  never  was  meant  to  lift  it  by. 

The  faults  and  mistakes  of  us  poor  human 
beings  are  as  often  perpetuated  by  despair  as 
by  any  other  one  thing.  Have  we  not  all 
been  burdened  by  a  consciousness  of  faults 
that  we  were  slow  to  correct  because  we  felt 
discouraged  ?  Have  we  not  been  sensible  of 
a  real  help  sometimes  from  the  presence  of  a 
friend  who  thought  well  of  us,  believed  in  us, 
set  our  virtues  in  the  best  light,  and  put  our 
faults  in  the  background? 

Let  us  depend  upon  it,  that  the  flesh  and 
blood  that  are  in  us,  —  the   needs,  the  wants, 

3  D 


50  Little  Foxes, 

the  despondencies,  —  are  in  each  of  our  fellows, 
in  every  awkward  servant  and  careless  child. 

Finally,  let  us  all  resolve, — 

First,  tc  attain  to  the  grace  of  silence. 

Second,  to  deem  all  fault-finding  that  does 
no  good  a  sin  ;  and  to  resolve,  when  we  are 
happy  ourselves,  not  to  poison  the  atmosphere 
for  our  neighbors  by  calling  on  them  to  remark 
every  painful  and  disagreeable  feature  of  their 
daily  life. 

Third,  to  practise  the  grace  and  virtue  of 
praise.  We  have  all  been  taught  that  it  is 
our  duty  to  praise  God,  but  few  of  us  have 
reflected  on  our  duty  to  praise  men ;  and  yet 
for  the  same  reason  that  we  should  praise  the 
divine  goodness  it  is  our  duty  to  praise  human 
excellence. 

We  should  praise  our  friends,  —  our  near  and 
dear  ones ;  we  should  look  on  and  think  of 
their  virtues  till  their  faults  fade  away ;  and 
when  we  love  most,  and  see  most  to  love,  then 
only  is  the  wise  time  wisely  to  speak  of  what 
should  still  be  alterea. 


Fault-Finding.  5 1 

Parents  should  look  out  for  occasions  to  com 
mend  their  children,  as  carefully  as  they  seek 
to  reprove  their  faults ;   and  employers  should 
praise   the   good   their   servants   do   as   strictly 
as  they  blame  the  evil. 

Whoever  undertakes  to  use  this  weapon  will 
find  that  praise  goes  farther  in  many  cases 
than  blame.  Watch  till  a  blundering  servant 
does  something  well,  and  then  praise  him  for 
it,  and  you  will  see  a  new  fire  lighted  in  the 
eye,  and  often  you  will  find  that  in  that  one 
respect  at  least  you  have  secured  excellence 
thenceforward. 

When  you  blame,  which  should  be  seldom, 
let  it  be  alone  with  the  person,  quietly,  con- 
siderately, and  with  all  the  tact  you  are  pos- 
sessed of.  The  fashion  of  reproving  children 
and  servants  in  the  presence  of  others  cannot 
be  too  much  deprecated.  Pride,  stubbornness, 
and  self-will  are  aroused  by  this,  while  a  more 
private  reproof  might  be  received  with  thank- 
fulness. 


52  Little  Foxes. 

As  a  general  rule,  I  would  say,  treat  children 
in  these  respects  just  as  you  would  grown  peo- 
ple ;  they  are  grown  people  in  miniature,  and 
need  as  careful  consideration  of  their  feelings 
as  any  of  us. 

Lastly,  let  us  all  make  a  bead-roll,  a  holy 
rosary,  of  all  that  is  good  and  agreeable  in 
our  position,  our  surroundings,  our  daily  lot, 
of  all  that  is  good  and  agreeable  in  our  friends, 
our  children,  our  servants,  and  charge  ourselves 
to  repeat  it  daily,  till  the  habit  of  our  minds 
be  to  praise  and  to  commend ;  and  so  doing, 
we  shall  catch  and  kill  one  Little  Fox  who 
hath  destroyed  many  tender  grapes. 


II. 

IRRITABILITY. 

f  T  was  that  Christmas-day  that  did  it ;  ±  'rn 
quite  convinced  of  that ;  and  the  way  it 
was  is,  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 

You  see,  among  the  various  family  customs 
of  us  Crowfields,  the  observance  of  all  sorts  of 
fetes  and  festivals  has  always  been  a  matter 
of  prime  regard ;  and  among  all  the  festivals 
of  the  round  ripe  year,  none  is  so  joyous  and 
honored  among  us  as  Christmas. 

Let  no  one  upon  this  prick  up  the  ears  of 
Archaeology,  and  tell  us  that  by  the  latest  cal- 
culations of  chronologists  our  ivy-grown  and 
holly-mantled  Christmas  is  all  a  hum,  —  that 
it  has  been  demonstrated,  by  all  sorts  of  signs 
and  tables,  that  the  august  event  it  celebrates 
did  not  take  place  on  the  25th  of  December. 
Supposing   it  be  so,  what  have  we  to  do  '•■■'-" 


54  Little  Foxes. 

that?  If  so  awful,  so  joyous  an  event  eve? 
took  place  on  our  earth,  it  is  surely  worth  com- 
memoration. It  is  the  event  we  celebrate,  not 
the  time.  And  if  all  Christians  for  eighteen 
hundred  years,  while  warring  and  wrangling 
on  a  thousand  other  points,  have  agreed  to 
give  this  one  25th  of  December  to  peace  and 
good-will,  who  is  he  that  shall  gainsay  them, 
and  for  an  historic  scruple  turn  his  back  on 
the  friendly  greetings  of  all  Christendom  ? 
Such  a  man  is  capable  of  re-writing  Milton's 
Christmas  Hymn  in  the  style  of  Sternhold  and 
Hopkins. 

In  our  house,  however,  Christmas  has  always 
been  a  high  day,  a  day  whose  expectation  has 
held  waking  all  the  little  eyes  in  our  bird's 
nest,  when  as  yet  there  were  only  little  ones 
there,  each  sleeping  with  one  eye  open,  hoping 
to  be  the  happy  first  to  wish  the  merry  Christ- 
mas and  grasp  the  wonderful  stocking. 

This  year  our  whole  family  train  of  married 
girls  and  boys,  with  the  various  toddling  tribes 


Irritability.  5  $ 

thereto  belonging,  held  high  festival  around  a 
wonderful  Christmas-tree,  the  getting-up  and 
adorning  of  which  had  kept  my  wife  and  Jen- 
nie and  myself  busy  for  a  week  beforehand. 
If  the  little  folks  think  these  trees  grow  up  in 
a  night,  without  labor,  they  know  as  little  about 
them  as  they  do  about  most  of  the  other  bless- 
ings which  rain  down  on  their  dear  little 
thoughtless  heads.  Such  scrambling  and  clam- 
bering and  fussing  and  tying  and  untying,  such 
alterations  and  rearrangements,  such  agilities 
in  getting  up  and  down  and  everywhere  to  tie 
on  tapers  and  gold  balls  and  glittering  things 
innumerable,  to  hang  airy  dolls  in  graceful  posi- 
tions, to  make  branches  bear  stiffly  up  under 
loads  of  pretty  things  which  threaten  to  make 
the  tapers  turn  bottom  upward ! 

Part  and  parcel  of  all  this  was  I,  Christo- 
pher, most  reckless  of  rheumatism,  most  care- 
less of  dignity,  —  the  round,  bald  top  of  my 
head  to  be  seen  emerging  everywhere  from 
the  thick  boughs   of  the  spruce,  now  devising 


56  Little  Foxes. 

an  airy  settlement  for  some  gossamer-robed 
doll,  now  adjusting  far  back  on  a  stiff  branch 
Tom's  new  little  skates,  now  balancing  bags 
of  sugar-plums  and  candy,  and  now  combating 
desperately  with  some  contumacious  taper  that 
would  turn  slantwise  or  crosswise,  or  anywise 
but  upward,  as  a  Christian  taper  should,  —  re- 
gardless of  Mrs.  Crowfield's  gentle  admonitions 
and  suggestions,  sitting  up  to  most  dissipated 
hours,  springing  out  of  bed  suddenly  to  change 
some  arrangement  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
and  up  long  before  the  lazy  sun  at  dawn  to 
execute  still  other  arrangements.  If  that 
Christmas-tree  had  been  a  fort  to  be  taken, 
or  a  campaign  to  be  planned,  I  could  not 
have  spent  more  time  and  strength  on  it.  My 
zeal  so  far  outran  even  that  of  sprightly  Miss 
Jennie,  that  she  could  account  for  it  only  by 
saucily  suggesting  that  papa  must  be  fast  get- 
ting into  his  second  childhood. 

But   did  n't  we  have  a  splendid  lighting-up  ? 
Did  n't   I    and    my    youngest    grandson,   little 


Irritability.  5  7 

Tom,  head  the  procession  magnificent  in  paper 
soldier-caps,  blowing  tin  trumpets  and  beating 
drums,  as  we  marched  round  the  twinkling  glo- 
ries of  our  Christmas-tree,  all  glittering  with 
red  and  blue  and  green  tapers,  and  with  a 
splendid  angel  on  top  with  great  gold  wings, 
the  cutting-out  and  adjusting  of  which  had 
held  my  eyes  waking  for  nights  before  ?  I  had 
had  oceans  of  trouble  with  that  angel,  owing  to 
an  unlucky  sprain  in  his  left  wing,  which  had 
1  equired  constant  surgical  attention  through  the 
week,  and  which  I  feared  might  fall  loose  again 
at  the  important  and  blissful  moment  of  exhi- 
bition :  but  no,  the  Fates  were  in  our  favor  ; 
the  angel  behaved  beautifully,  and  kept  his 
wings  as  crisp  as  possible,  and  the  tapers  all 
burned  splendidly,  and  the  little  folks  were  as 
crazy  with  delight  as  my  most  ardent  hopes 
could  have  desired  ;  and  then  we  romped  and 
played  and  frolicked  as  long  as  little  eyes  could 
keep  open,  and  long  after  ;  and  so  passed  away 
our  Christmas. 
3* 


58  Little  Foxes. 

I  had  forgotten  to  speak  of  the  Christmas- 
dinner,  that  solid  feast  of  fat  things,  on  which 
we  also  luxuriated.  Mrs.  Crowfield  outdid  all 
household  traditions  in  that  feast :  the  turkey 
and  the  chickens,  the  jellies  and  the  sauces, 
the  pies  and  the  pudding,  behold,  are  they  not 
written  in  the  tablets  of  Memory  which  remain 
to  this  day? 

The  holidays  passed  away  hilariously,  and  at 
New- Year's  I,  according  to  time-honored  cus- 
tom, went  forth  to  make  my  calls  and  see  my 
fair  friends,  while  my  wife  and  daughters  stayed 
at  home  to  dispense  the  hospitalities  of  the  day 
to  their  gentlemen  friends.  All  was  merry, 
cheerful,  and  it  was  agreed  on  all  hands  that  a 
more  joyous  holiday  season  had  never  flown 
over  us. 

But,  somehow,  the  week  after,  I  began  to  be 
sensible  of  a  running-down  in  the  wheels.  I 
had  an  article  to  write  for  the  "Atlantic,"  out 
felt  mopish  and  could  not  write.  My  dinnei 
had   not  its   usual    relish,    and    I   had   an    in 


Irritability.  59 

definite  sense  everywhere  of  something  going 
wrong  My  coal  bill  came  in,  and  I  felt  sure 
we  were  being  extravagant,  and  that  our  John 
Furnace  wasted  the  coal.  My  grandsons  and 
granddaughters  came  to  see  us,  and  I  discov- 
ered that  they  had  high-pitched  voices,  and 
burst  in  without  wiping  their  shoes,  and  it  sud- 
denly occurred  powerfully  to  my  mind  that 
they  were  not  being  well  brought  up,  —  evi- 
dently, they  were  growing  up  rude  and  noisy. 
I  discovered  several  tumblers  and  plates  with 
the  edges  chipped,  and  made  bitter  reflections 
on  the  carelessness  of  Irish  servants  ;  —  our 
crockery  was  going  to  destruction,  along  with 
the  rest.  Then,  on  opening  one  of  my  paper- 
drawers,  I  found  that  Jennie's  one  drawer  of 
worsted  had  overflowed  into  two  or  three ; 
Jennie  was  growing  careless  ;  besides,  worsted 
is  dear,  and  girls  knit  away  small  fortunes, 
without  knowing  it,  on  little  duds  that  do  no- 
body any  good.  Moreover,  Maggie  had  three 
times  put  my  slippers  into  the  hall-closet,  in- 


60  Little  Foxes. 

stead  of  leaving  them  where  I  wanted,  undei 
my  study-table.  Mrs.  Crowfield  ought  to  look 
after  things  more  ;  every  servant,  from  end  tc 
end  of  the  house,  was  getting  out  of  the  traces , 
it  was  strange  she  did  not  see  it. 

All  this  I  vented,  from  time  to  time,  in  short, 
crusty  sayings  and  doings,  as  freely  as  if  I 
had  n't  just  written  an  article  on  " Little  Foxes" 
in  the  last  "  Atlantic,"  till  at  length  my  eyes 
were   opened  on  my  own  state  and  condition. 

It  was  evening,  and  I  had  just  laid  up  the 
fire  in  the  most  approved  style  of  architecture, 
and,  projecting  my  feet  into  my  slippers,  sat 
spitefully  cutting  the  leaves  of  a  caustic  review. 

Mrs.  Crowfield  took  the  tongs  and  altered 
the  disposition  of  a  stick. 

"  My  dear,"  I  said,  "  I  do  wish  you  d  let  the 
fire  alone,  —  you  always  put  it  out." 

"  I  was  merely  admitting  a  little  air  between 
the  sticks,"  said  my  wife. 

"  You  always  make  matters  worse,  when  yon 
touch  the  fire." 


Irritability.  6 1 

As  if  in  contradiction,  a  bright  tongue  of 
dame  darted  up  between  the  sticks,  and  the 
fire  began  chattering  and  snapping  defiance  at 
me.  Now,  if  there 's  anything  which  would 
provoke  a  saint,  it  is  to  be  jeered  and  snapped 
at  in  that  way  by  a  man's  own  fire.  It's  an 
unbearable  impertinence.  I  threw  out  my  leg 
impatiently,  and  hit  Rover,  who  yelped  a  yelp 
that  finished  the  upset  of  my  nerves.  I  gave 
him  a  hearty  kick,  that  he  might  have  some- 
thing to  yelp  for,  and  in  the  movement  upset 
Jennie's  embroidery-basket. 

"  Oh,  papa  !  " 

"  Confound  your  baskets  and  balls  !  they  are 
everywhere,  so  that  a  man  can't  move  ;  useless, 
wasteful  things,  too." 

"  Wasteful  ? "  said  Jennie,  coloring  indig- 
nantly ;  for  if  there 's  anything  Jennie  piques 
herself  upon,  it 's  economy. 

"  Yes,  wasteful,  —  wasting  time  and  money 
both.  Here  are  hundreds  of  shivering  poor  to 
be  clothed,  and  Christian   females   sit   and   do 


62  Little  Foxes. 

nothing  but  crochet  worsted  into  useless  knick- 
nacks.  If  they  would  be  working  for  the  poor, 
there  would  be  some  sense  in  it.  But  it 's  all 
just  alike,  no  real  Christianity  in  the  world, 
nothing  but  organized  selfishness  and  self-indul- 
gence." 

"  My  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Crowfield,  "  you  are  not 
well  to-night.  Things  are  not  quite  so  despe- 
rate as  they  appear.  You  have  n't  got  over 
Christmas-week." 

"  I  am  well.  Never  was  better.  But  I  can 
see,  I  hope,  what 's  before  my  eyes  ;  and  the 
fact  is,  Mrs.  Crowfield,  things  must  not  go  on 
as  they  are  going.  There  must  be  more  care, 
more  attention  to  details.  There  's  Maggie,  — 
that  girl  never  does  what  she  is  told.  You  are 
too  slack  with  her,  Ma'am.  She  will  light  the 
fire  with  the  last  paper,  and  she  won't  put  my 
slippers  in  the  right  place  ;  and  I  can't  have 
my  study  made  the  general  catch-all  and  mena- 
gerie for  Rover  and  Jennie,  and  her  baskets  and 
balls,  and  for  all  the  family  litter." 


Irritability.  63 

Just  at  this  moment  I  overheard  a  sort  of 
aside  from  Jennie,  who  was  swelling  with  re- 
pressed indignation  at  my  attack  on  her  wors- 
ted. *  She  sat  with  her  back  to  me,  knitting  en- 
ergetically, and  said,  in  a  low,  but  very  decisive 
tone,  as  she  twitched  her  yarn,  — 

"  Now  if  /  should  talk  in  that  way,  people 
would  call  me  cross,  —  and  that 's  the  whole 
of  it" 

I  pretended  to  be  looking  into  the  fire  in  an 
absent-minded  state  ;  but  Jennie's  words  had 
started  a  new  idea.  Was  that  it  ?  Was  that 
the  whole  matter  ?  Was  it,  then,  a  fact,  that 
the  house,  the  servants,  Jennie  and  her  wors- 
teds, Rover  and  Mrs.  Crowfield,  were  all  going 
on  pretty  much  as  usual,  and  that  the  only  dif- 
ficulty was  that  I  was  cross  ?  How  many  times 
had  I  encouraged  Rover  to  lie  just  where  he 
was  lying  when  I  kicked  him  !  How  many 
t'mes,  in  better  moods,  had  I  complimented 
Jennie  on  her  neat  little  fancy-works,  and  de- 
clared that  T  liked  the  social  companionship  of 


04  Little  Foxes. 

ladies'  work-baskets  among  my  papers !  Yes,  it 
was  clear.  After  all,  things  were  much  as  they 
had  been ;  only  I  was  cross. 

Cross.  I  put  it  to  myself  in  that  simple,  old- 
fashioned  word,  instead  of  saying  that  I  was 
out  of  spirits,  or  nervous,  or  using  any  of  the 
other  smooth  phrases  with  which  we  good 
Christians  cover  up  our  little  sins  of  temper. 
"  Here  you  are,  Christopher,"  said  I  to  myself, 
"a  literary  man,  with  a  somewhat  delicate  ner- 
vous organization  and  a  sensitive  stomach,  and 
you  have  been  eating  like  a  sailor  or  a  plough- 
man ;  you  have  been  gallivanting  and  merry- 
making and  playing  the  boy  for  two  weeks ;  up 
at  all  sorts  of  irregular  hours,  and  into  all  sorts 
of  boyish  performances  ;  and  the  consequence 
is,  that,  like  a  thoughtless  young  scapegrace, 
you  have  used  up  in  ten  days  the  capital  of 
nervous  energy  that  was  meant  to  last  you  ten 
weeks.  You  can't  eat  your  cake  and  have 
it  too,  Christopher.  When  the  nervous-fluid, 
source  of  cheerfulness,  giver  of  pleasant  sensa- 


Irritability.  65 

tions  and  pleasant  views,  is  all  spent,  you  can't 
feel  cheerful ;  things  cannot  look  as  they  did 
when  you  were  full  of  life  and  vigor.  When 
the  tide  is  out,  there  is  nothing  but  unsightly, 
ill-smelling  tide-mud,  and  you  can't  help  it ;  but 
you  cd7i  keep  your  senses,  —  you  can  know 
what  is  the  matter  with  you,  —  you  can  keep 
from  visiting  your  overdose  of  Christmas  mince- 
pies  and  candies  and  jocularities  on  the  heads 
of  Mrs.  Crowfield,  Rover,  and  Jennie,  whether 
in  the  form  of  virulent  morality,  pungent  criti- 
cisms, or  a  free  kick,  such  as  you  just  gave 
the   poor  brute." 

"  Come  here,  Rover,  poor  dog ! "  said  I,  ex- 
tending my  hand  to  Rover,  who  cowered  at 
the  farther  corner  of  the  room,  eying  me  wist- 
fully,—  "come  here,  you  poor  doggie,  and  make 
up  with  your  master.  There,  there  !  Was  his 
master  cross  ?  Well,  he  knows  it.  We  must 
forgive  and  forget,  old  boy,  must  n't  we  ? "  And 
Rover  nearly  broke  his  own  back  and  tore  me 
to  pieces  with  his  tumultuous  tail-waggings. 


66  Little  Foxes. 

H  As  for  you,  puss,"  I  said  to  Jennie,  "  I  am 
much  obliged  to  you  for  your  free  suggestion. 
You  must  take  my  cynical  moralities  for  what 
they  are  worth,  and  put  your  little  traps  into 
as  many  of  my  drawers  as  you  like." 

In  short,  I  made  it  up  handsomely  all  around, 
—  even  apologizing  to  Mrs.  Crowfield,  who,  by 
the  by,  has  summered  and  wintered  me  so 
many  years,  and  knows  all  my  little  seams  and 
crinkles  so  well,  that  she  took  my  irritable,  un- 
reasonable spirit  as  tranquilly  as  if  I  had  been 
a  baby  cutting  a  new  tooth. 

"  Of  course,  Chris,  I  knew  what  the  matter 
was  ;  don't  disturb  yourself,"  she  said,  as  I  be- 
gan my  apology  ;  "  we  understand  each  other. 
But  there  is  one  thing  I  have  to  say ;  and 
that  is,  that  your   article  ought  to  be  ready." 

"  Ah,  well,  then,"  said  I,  "  like  other  great 
writers,  I  shall  make  capital  of  my  own  sins, 
and  treat  of  the  second  little  family  fox  ;  and 
his  name  is  — 


Irritability.  67 

IRRITABILITY. 

Irritability  is,  more  than  most  unlovely 
states,  a  sin  of  the  flesh.  It  is  not,  like  envy, 
malice,  spite,  revenge,  a  vice  which  we  may 
suppose  to  belong  equally  to  an  embodied  or 
a  disembodied  spirit.  In  fact,  it  comes  nearer 
to  being  physical  depravity  than  anything  I 
know  of.  There  are  some  bodily  states,  some 
conditions  of  the  nerves,  such  that  we  could 
not  conceive  of  even  an  angelic  spirit  confined 
in  a  body  thus  disordered  as  being  able  to  do 
any  more  than  simply  endure.  It  is  a  state 
of  nervous  torture  ;  and  the  attacks  which  the 
wretched  victim  makes  on  others  are  as  much 
a  result  of  disease  as  the  snapping  and  biting 
of  a  patient  convulsed  with  hydrophobia. 

Then,  again,  there  are  other  people  who  go 
through  life  loving  and  beloved,  desired  in  ev- 
ery circle,  held  up  in  the  Church  as  exam- 
ples of  the  power  of  religion,  who,  after  all,  de- 
serve no  credit  for  these  things.     Their  spirits 


68  Little  Foxes. 

are  lodged  in  an  animal  nature  so  tranquil, 
so  cheerful,  all  the  sensations  which  come  to 
them  are  so  fresh  and  vigorous  and  pleasant, 
that  they  cannot  help  viewing  the  world  char- 
itably and  seeing  everything  through  a  glori- 
fied medium.  The  ill-temper  of  others  does 
not  provoke  them  ;  perplexing  business  never 
sets  their  nerves  to  vibrating  ;  and  all  their 
lives  long  they  walk  in  the  serene  sunshine  of 
perfect  animal  health. 

Look  at  Rover  there.  He  is  never  nervous, 
never  cross,  never  snaps  or  snarls,  and  is  ready, 
the  moment  after  the  grossest  affront,  to  wag 
the  tail  of  forgiveness,  —  all  because  kind  Na- 
ture has  put  his  dog's  body  together  so  that 
it  always  works  harmoniously.  If  every  person 
in  the  world  were  gifted  with  a  stomach  and 
nerves  like  his,  it  would  be  a  far  better  and 
happier  world,  no  doubt.  The  man  said  a 
good  thing  who  made  the  remark,  that  the 
foundation  of  all  intellectual  and  moral  worth 
must  be  laid  in  a  good  healthy  animal. 


Irritability.  69 

Now  1  think  it  is  undeniable  that  the  peace 
and  happiness  of  the  home-circle  are  very  gen- 
erally much  invaded  by  the  recurrence  in  its 
members  of  these  states  of  bodily  irritability. 
Every  person,  if  he  thinks  the  matter  over,  will 
see  that  his  condition  in  life,  the  character  of 
his  friends,  his  estimate  of  their  virtues  and 
failings,  his  hopes  and  expectations,  are  all 
very  much  modified  by  these  things.  Cannot 
we  all  remember  going  to  bed  as  very  ill-used, 
persecuted  individuals,  all  whose  friends  were 
unreasonable,  whose  life  was  full  of  trials  and 
crosses,  and  waking  up  on  a  bright  bird-sing- 
ing morning  to  find  all  these  illusions  gone 
with  the  fogs  of  the  night  ?  Our  friends  are 
nice  people,  after  all ;  the  little  things  that  an- 
noyed us  look  ridiculous  by  bright  sunshine  t 
and  we  are  fortunate  individuals. 

The  philosophy  of  life,  then,  as  far  as  this 
matter  is  concerned,  must  consist  of  two  things : 
first,  to  keep  ourselves  out  of  irritable  bodily 
states ;    and,  second,   to    understand    and    con 


yo  Little  Foxes. 

trol  these  states,  when  we  cannot  ward  them 
off. 

Of  course,  the  first  of  these  is  the  most  im- 
portant ;  and  yet,  of  all  things,  it  seems  to  be 
least  looked  into  and  understood.  We  find 
abundant  rules  for  the  government  of  the 
tongue  and  temper ;  it  is  a  slough  into  which, 
John  Bunyan  hath  it,  cart-loads  of  wholesome 
instructions  have  been  thrown  ;  but  how  to  get 
and  keep  that  healthy  state  of  brain,  stomach, 
and  nerves  which  takes  away  the  temptation 
to  ill-temper  and  anger  is  a  subject  which 
moral  and  religious  teachers  seem  scarcely  to 
touch  upon. 

Now,  without  running  into  technical,  physi- 
ological language,  it  is  evident,  as  regards  us 
human  beings,  that  there  is  a  power  by  which 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  —  by 
which  the  brain  thinks  and  wills,  the  stomach 
digests,  the  blood  circulates,  and  all  the  differ- 
ent provinces  of  the  little  man-kingdom  do 
their  woik.     This   something  —  call  it  nervous 


Irritability.  71 

fluid,  nervous  power,  vital  energy,  "life-force,  01 
anything  else  that  you  will  —  is  a  perfectly  un- 
derstood, if  not  a  definable  thing.     It  is  plain 
too,  that  people  possess  this  force  in  very  dif- 
ferent degrees  ;  some  generating  it  as  a  high 
pressure  engine  does  steam,  and  using  it  con 
stantly,  with  an  apparently  inexhaustible  flow . 
and  others  who  have  little,  and  spend  it  quickly 
We  have  a  common  saying,  that  this  or  tha 
person  is  soon   used  up.     Now   most   nervou: 
irritable  states  of  temper  are  the  mere  physic?' 
result  of  a  used-up  condition.     The  person  ha » 
overspent    his  nervous    energy,  —  like    a    man 
who  should  eat  up  on  Monday  the  whole  foo-1 
which   was  to   keep   him   for   a  week,  and  go 
growling  and  faint  through  the  other  days  ;  or 
the  quantity  of  nervous  force  which  was  wanted 
to  carry  on  the  whole  system  in  all  its  parte 
is  seized  on  by  some  one  monopolizing  portion 
and  used  up  to  the  loss  and  detriment  of  the 
rest.     Thus,  with  men  of  letters,  an  exorbitant 
brain   expends   on   its  own  workings  what  be* 


72  Little  Foxes. 

longs  to  the  other  offices  of  the  body :  the 
stomach  has  nothing  to  carry  on  digestion ;  the 
secretions  are  badly  made  ;  and  the  imperfectly 
assimilated  nourishment,  that  is  conveyed  to 
every  little  nerve  and  tissue,  carries  with  it  an 
acrid,  irritating  quality,  producing  general  rest- 
lessness and  discomfort.  So  men  and  women 
go  struggling  on  through  their  threescore  and 
ten  years,  scarcely  one  in  a  thousand  knowing 
through  life  that  perfect  balance  of  parts,  that 
appropriate  harmony  of  energies,  that  make  a 
healthy,  kindly  animal  condition,  predisposing 
to  cheerfulness  and  good-will. 

We  Americans  are,  in  the  first  place,  a  ner- 
vous, excitable  people.  Multitudes  of  children, 
probably  the  great  majority  in  the  upper  walks 
of  life,  are  born  into  the  world  with  weaknesses 
of  the  nervous  organization,  or  of  the  brain  or 
stomach,  which  make  them  incapable  of  any 
strong  excitement  or  prolonged  exertion  with- 
out some  lesion  or  derangement ;  so  that  they 
are    continually   being    checked,   laid   up,    and 


In  liability.  73 

made  invalids  in  the  midst  of  their  days.  Life 
here  in  America  is  so  fervid,  so  fast,  our  cli- 
mate is  so  stimulating,  with  its  clear,  bright 
skies,  its  rapid  and  sudden  changes  of  tempera- 
ture, that  the  tendencies  to  nervous  disease  are 
constantly  aggravated. 

Under  these  circumstances,  unless  men  and 
women  make  a  conscience,  a  religion,  of  saving 
and  sparing  something  of  themselves  expressly 
for  home-life  and  home-consumption,  it  must 
follow  that  home  will  often  be  merely  a  sort  of 
refuge  for  us  to  creep  into  when  we  are  used 
up  and  irritable. 

Papa  is  up  and  off,  after  a  hasty  breakfast, 
and  drives  all  day  in  his  business,  putting  into 
it  all  there  is  in  him,  letting  it  drink  up  brain 
and  nerve  and  body  and  soul,  and  coming  home 
jaded  and  exhausted,  so  that  he  cannot  bear 
the  cry  of  the  baby,  and  the  frolics  and  patter- 
ing of  the  nursery  seem  horrid  and  needless 
confusion.  The  little  ones  say,  in  their  plain 
vernacular,  "  Papa  is  cross." 
4 


74  Little  Foxes. 

Mamma  goes  out  to  a  party  that  keeps  hei 
up  till  one  or  two  in  the  morning,  breathes  baa 
air,  eats  indigestible  food,  and  the  next  day  is 
so  nervous  that  every  straw  and  thread  in  her 
domestic  path  is  insufferable. 

Papas  that  pursue  business  thus  day  after 
day,  and  mammas  that  go  into  company,  as  it 
is  called,  night  after  night,  what  is  there  left 
in  or  of  them  to  make  an  agreeable  fireside 
with,  to  brighten  their  home  and  inspire  their 
children  ? 

True,  the  man  says  he  cannot  help  himself, 
—  business  requires  it.  But  what  is  the  need 
of  rolling  up  money  at  the  rate  at  which  he  is 
seeking  to  do  it  ?  Why  not  have  less,  and  take 
some  time  to  enjoy  his  home,  and  cheer  up  his 
wife,  and  form  the  minds  of  his  children  ?  Why 
spend  himself  down  to  the  last  drop  on  the 
world,  and  give  to  the  dearest  friends  he  has 
only  the  bitter  dregs  ? 

Much  of  the  preaching  which  the  pulpit  and 
the  Church  have  levelled  at  fashionable  amuse- 


Irritability.  75 

merits  has  failed  of  any  effect  at  all,  because 
wrongly  put.  A  cannonade  has  been  opened 
upon  dancing,  for  example,  and  all  for  reasons 
that  will  not,  in  the  least,  bear  looking  into. 
It  is  vain  to  talk  of  dancing  as  a  sin  because 
practised  in  a  dying  world  where  souls  are 
passing  into  eternity.  If  dancing  is  a  sin  for 
this  reason,  so  is  playing  marbles,  or  frolicking 
with  one's  children,  or  enjoying  a  good  dinner, 
or  doing  fifty  other  things  which  nobody  ever 
dreamed  of  objecting  to. 

If  the  preacher  were  to  say  that  anything  is 
a  sin  which  uses  up  the  strength  we  need  for 
daily  duties,  and  leaves  us  fagged  ouUand  irrita- 
ble at  just  those  times  and  in  just  those  places 
when  and  where  we  need  most  to  be  healthy, 
cheerful,  and  self-possessed,  he  would  say  a 
thing  that  none  of  his  hearers  would  dispute. 
If  he  should  add,  that  dancing-parties,  begin- 
ning at  ten  o'clock  at  night  and  ending  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  do  use  up  the  strength, 
weaken  the  nerves,  and  leave  a  person  wholly 


j6  Little  Foxes. 

unfit  for  any  home  duty,  he  would  als^  be  say- 
ing what  very  few  people  would  deny ;  and 
then  his  case  would  be  made  out.  If  he  shoula 
say  that  it  is  wrong  to  breathe  bad  air  and  fill 
the  stomach  with  unwholesome  dainties,  so  as 
to  make  one  restless,  ill-natured,  and  irritable 
for  days,  he  would  also  say  what  few  would 
deny,  and  his  preaching  might  have  some  hope 
of  success. 

The  true  manner  of  judging  of  the  worth  of 
amusements  is  to  try  them  by  their  effects  on 
the  nerves  and  spirits  the  day  after.  True 
amusement  ought  to  be,  as  the  word  indicates, 
recreatioji^jr—  something  that  refreshes,  turns  us 
out  anew,  rests  the  mind  and  body  by  change, 
and  gives  cheerfulness  and  alacrity  to  our  re- 
turn to  duty. 

The  true  objection  to  all  stimulants,  alcoholic 
and  narcotic,  consists  simply  in  this,  —  that 
they  are  a  form  of  overdraft  on  the  nervous 
energy,  which  helps  us  to  use  up  in  cue  hour 
the  strength  oi  whole  days. 


Irritability.  Jf 

A  man  uses  up  all  the  fair,  legal  interest  of 
neivour,  power  by  too  much  business,  too  much 
care,  or  too  much  amusement.  He  has  now  a 
demand  to  meet.  He  has  a  complicate  ac- 
count to  make  up,  an  essay  or  a  sermon  to 
write,  and  he  primes  himself  by  a  cup  of  coffee, 
a  cigar,  a  glass  of  spirits.  This  is  exactly  the 
procedure  of  a  man  who,  having  used  the  in- 
terest of  his  money,  begins  to  dip  into  the 
principal.  The  strength  a  man  gets  in  this 
way  is  just  so  much  taken  out  of  his  life- 
blood  ;  it  is  borrowing  of  a  merciless  creditor, 
who  will  exact,  in  time,  the  pound  of  flesh 
nearest  his  heart. 

Much  of  the  irritability  which  spoils  home 
happiness  is  the  letting-down  from  the  over- 
excitement  of  stimulus.  Some  will  drink  cof- 
fee, when  they  own  every  day  that  it  makes 
them  nervous ;  some  will  drug  themselves  with 
tobacco,  and  some  with  alcohol,  and,  for  a  few 
hours  of  extra  brightness,  give  themselves  ari 
their  friends   many   hours   when   amiability  ■•' 


78  Little  Foxes. 

agreeableness  is  quite  out  of  the  question. 
There  are  peor*e  calling  themselves  Chris- 
tians who  live  la  miserable  thraldom,  forever 
m  debt  to  Nature,  forev«er  overdrawing  on  their 
just  resources,  and  using  up  their  patrimony, 
because  they  have  not  the  moral  courage  to 
break  away  from  a  miserable  appetite. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  numberless  indul- 
gences of  the  palate,  which  tax  the  stomach 
beyond  its  power,  and  bring  on  all  the  hor- 
rors of  indigestion.  It  is  almost  impossible  for 
a  confirmed  dyspeptic  to  act  like  a  good  Chris- 
tian ;  but  a  good  Christian  ought  not  to  be- 
come a  confirmed  dyspeptic.  Reasonable  self- 
control,  abstaining  from  all  unseasonable  indul- 
gence, may  prevent  or  put  an  end  to  dyspep- 
sia, and  many  suffer  and  make  their  friends 
suffer  only  because  they  will  persist  in  eating 
what  they  know  is  hurtful  to  them. 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  worldly  business,  or 
fashionable  amusements,  or  the  gratification  of 
appetite,  that  people  are  tempted  to  overdraw 


Irritability.  79 

and  use  up  in  advance  their  life-force.  It  is 
done  in  ways  more  insidious,  because  con- 
nected with  our  moral  and  religious  faculties. 
There  are  religious  exaltations  beyond  the  reg- 
ular pulse  and  beatings  of  ordinary  nature, 
that  quite  as  surely  gravitate  downward  into 
the  mire  of  irritability.  The  ascent  to  the 
third  heaven  lets  even  the  Apostle  down  to  a 
thorn  in  the  flesh,  the  messenger  of  Satan  to 
buffet  him. 

It  is  the  temptation  of  natures  in  which  the 
moral  faculties  predominate  to  overdo  in  the 
outward  expression  and  activities  of  religion 
till  they  are  used  up  and  irritable,  and  have  no 
strength  left  to  set  a  good  example  in  domes- 
tic life. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  X.  in  the  pulpit  to-day 
appears  with  the  face  of  an  angel ;  he  soars 
away  into  those  regions  of  exalted  devotion 
where  his  people  can  but  faintly  gaze  after 
him ;  he  tells  them  of  the  victory  that  over- 
cometh   the  world,  of   an   unmoved   faith   that 


80  Little  Foxes. 

fears  no  evil,  of  a  serenity  of  love  that  no  out 
ward  event  can  ruffle ;  and  all  look  after  him 
and  wonder,  and  wish  they  could  so  soar. 

Alas !  the  exaltation  which  inspires  these 
sublime  conceptions,  these  celestial  ecstasies, 
is  a  double  and  treble  draft  on  Nature,  —  and 
poor  Mrs.  X.  knows,  when  she  hears  him 
preaching,  that  days  of  miserable  reaction  are 
before  her.  He  has  been  a  fortnight  driving 
before  a  gale  of  strong  excitement,  doing  all 
the  time  twice  or  thrice  as  much  as  in  his 
ordinary  state  he  could,  and  sustaining  him- 
self by  the  stimulus  of  strong  coffee.  He  has 
preached  or  exhorted  every  night,  and  con- 
versed with  religious  inquirers  every  day,  seem- 
ing to  himself  to  become  stronger  and  stronger, 
because  every  day  more  and  more  excitable 
and  excited.  To  his  hearers,  with  his  flushed 
sunken  cheek  and  his  glittering  eye,  he  looks 
like  some  spiritual  being  just  trembling  on  nis 
flight  for  upper  worlds  ;  but  to  poor  Mrs.  X. 
whose  husband  he  is,  things  wear  a  very  dif- 


Irritability.  8 1 

ferent  aspect.  Her  woman  and  mother  in- 
stincts tell  her  that  he  is  drawing  on  his  life- 
capital  with  both  hands,  and  that  the  hours  of 
a  terrible  settlement  must  come,  and  the  days 
of  darkness  will  be  many.  He  who  spoke  so 
beautifully  of  the  peace  of  a  soul  made  perfect 
will  not  be  able  to  bear  the  cry  of  his  baby  or 
the  pattering  feet  of  any  of  the  poor  little  X.s, 
who  must  be  sent 

"Anywhere,  anywhere, 
Out  of  his  sight "  ; 

he  who  discoursed  so  devoutly  of  perfect  trust 
in  God  will  be  nervous  about  the  butcher's  bill, 
sure  of  going  to  ruin  because  both  ends  of  the 
salary  don't  meet ;  and  he  who  could  so  admir- 
ingly tell  of  the  silence  of  Jesus  under  provoca- 
tion will  but  too  often  speak  unadvisedly  with 
his  lips.  Poor  Mr.  X.  will  be  morally  insane 
for  days  or  weeks,  and  absolutely  incapable  of 
preaching  Christ  in  the  way  that  is  the  most 
effective,  by  setting  Him  forth  in  his  own  daily 
example. 


82  Little  Foxes. 

What  then  ?  must  we  not  do  the  work  of  the 
Lord  ? 

Yes,  certainly ;  but  the  first  work  of  the 
Lord,  that  for  which  provision  is  to  be  made 
in  the  first  place,  is  to  set  a  good  example  as 
a  Christian  man.  Better  labor  for  years  stead- 
ily, diligently,  doing  every  day  only  what  the 
night's  rest  can  repair,  avoiding  those  cheating 
stimulants  that  overtax  Nature,  and  illustrating 
the  sayings  of  the  pulpit  by  the  daily  life  in 
the  family,  than  to  pass  life  in  exaltations  and 
depressions,  resulting  from  overstrained  labors, 
supported  by  unnatural   stimulus. 

The  same  principles  apply  to  hearers  as  to 
preachers.  Religious  services  must  be  judged 
of  like  amusements,  by  their  effect  on  the  life. 
If  an  •  overdose  of  prayers,  hymns,  and  sermons 
leaves  us  tired,  nervous,  and  cross,  it  is  only 
not  quite  as  bad  as  an  overdose  of  fashionable 
folly. 

It  could  be  wished  that  in  every  neighbor- 
hood there  might  be  one   or   two  calm,  sweet, 


Irritability.  83 

daily  services  which  should  morning  and  even- 
ing: unite  for  a  few  solemn  moments  the  hearts 
of  all  53  in  one  family,  and  feed  with  a  constant, 
unnoticed,  daily  supply  the  lamp  of  faith  and 
love.  Such  are  some  of  the  daily  prayer-meet- 
ings which  for  eight  or  ten  years  past  have  held 
their  even  tenor  in  some  of  our  New  England 
cities,  and  such  the  morning  and  evening  ser- 
vices which  we  are  glad  to  see  obtaining  in  the 
Episcopal  churches.  Everything  which  brings 
religion  into  habitual  contact  with  life,  and 
makes  it  part  of  a  healthy,  cheerful  average 
living,  we  haihas  a  sign  of  a  better  day.  Noth- 
ing is  so  good  for  health  as  daily  devotion.  It 
is  the  best  soother  of  the  nerves,  the  best  an- 
tidote to  care  ;  and  we  trust  erelong  that  all 
Christian  people  will  be  of  one  mind  in  this, 
and  that  neighborhoods  will  be  families  gather- 
ing daily  around  one  altar,  praying  not  for 
themselves  merely,  but  for  each  other. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  this  * 
Set  apart  some  provision  to  make  merry  with 


84  Little  Foxes. 

at  home,  and  guard  that  reserve  as  religiously 
as  the  priests  guarded  the  shew-bread  in  the 
temple.  However  great  you  are,  however  good, 
however  wide  the  general  interests  that  you 
may  control,  you  gain  nothing  by  neglecting 
home-duties.  You  must  leave  enough  of  your- 
self to  be  able  to  bear  and  forbear,  give  and 
forgive,  and  be  a  source  of  life  and  cheerfulness 
around  the  hearthstone.  The  great  sign  given 
by  the  Prophets  of  the  coming  of  the  Millen- 
nium is,  —  what  do  you  suppose  ?  —  "  He  shall 
turn  the  heart  of  the  fathers  to  the  children, 
and  the  heart  of  the  children  to  their  fathers, 
lest  I  come  and  smite  the  earth  with  a  curse." 

Thus  much  on  avoiding  unhealthy,  irritable 
states. 

But  it  still  remains  that  a  large  number  of 
people  will  be  subject  to  them  unavoidably  for 
these  reasons. 

First.  The  use  of  tobacco,  alcohol,  and  other 
kindred  stimulants,  for  so  many  generations, 
has  vitiated  the  brain   and  nervous  system   of 


Irritability.  85 

modern  civilized  races  so  that  it  is  not  what 
it  was  in  former  times.  Michelet  treats  of 
this  subject  quite  at  large  in  some  of  his  late 
works  ;  and  we  have  to  face  the  fact  of  a  gen- 
eration born  with  an  impaired  nervous  organiz- 
ation, who  will  need  constant  care  and  wis- 
dom to   avoid    unhealthy,   morbid  irritation. 

There  is  a  temperament  called  the  hypo- 
chondriac, to  which  many  persons,  some  ot 
them  the  brightest,  the  most  interesting,  the 
most  gifted,  are  born  heirs,  —  a  want  of  balance 
of  the  nervous  powers,  which  tends  constantly 
to  periods  of  high  excitement  and  of  conse- 
quent depression, — an  unfortunate  inheritance 
for  the  possessor,  though  accompanied  often 
with  the  greatest  talents.  Sometimes,  too,  it 
is  the  unfortunate  lot  of  those  who  have  not 
talents,  who  bear  its  burdens  and  its  anguish 
without  its  rewards. 

People  of  this  temperament  are  subject  to 
fits  of  gloom  and  despondency,  of  nervous  irri- 
tability and  suffering,  which  darken  the  aspecf 


86  Little  Foxes. 

of  the  whole  world  to  them,  which  present 
lying  reports  of  their  friends,  of  themselves,  of 
the  circumstances  of  their  life,  and  of  all  with 
which  they  have  to  do. 

Now  the  highest  philosophy  for  persons  thus 
afflicted  is  to  understand  themselves  and  their 
tendencies,  to  know  that  these  fits  of  gloom 
and  depression  are  just  as  much  a  form  of  dis- 
ease as  a  fever  or  a  toothache,  to  know  that  it 
is  the  peculiarity  of  the  disease  to  fill  the  mind 
with  wretched  illusions,  to  make  them  seem 
miserable  and  unlovely  to  themselves,  to  make 
their  nearest  friends  seem  unjust  and  unkind, 
to  make  all  events  appear  to  be  going  wrong 
and  tending  to  destruction  and  ruin. 

The  evils  and  burdens  of  such  a  tempera- 
ment are  half  removed  when  a  man  once  knows 
that  he  has  it  and  recognizes  it  for  a  disease, 
and  when  he  does  not  trust  himself  to  speak 
and  act  in  those  bitter  hours  as  if  there  were 
any  truth  in  what  he  thinks  and  feels  and  sees. 
He  who  has  not  attained  to  this  wisdom  over 


Irritability.  87 

•vhelms  his  friends  and  his  family  with  the 
waters  of  bitterness  ;  he  stings  with  unjust  ac- 
cusations, and  makes  his  fireside  dreadful  with 
fancies  which  are  real  to  him,  but  false  as  the 
ravings  of  fever. 

A  sensible  person,  thus  diseased,  who  has 
found  out  what  ails  him,  will  shut  his  mouth 
resolutely,  not  to  give  utterance  to  the  dark 
thoughts  that  infest  his  soul. 

A  lady  of  great  brilliancy  and  wit,  who  was 
subject  to  these  periods,  once  said  to  me,  "My 
dear  sir,  there  are  times  when  I  know  I  am 
possessed  of  the  Devil,  and  then  I  never  let 
myself  speak."  And  so  this  wise  woman  carried 
her  burden  about  with  her  in  a  determined, 
cheerful  reticence,  leaving  always  the  impres- 
sion of  a  cheery,  kindly  temper,  when,  if  she 
had  spoken  out  a  tithe  of  what  she  thought 
and  felt  in  her  morbid  hours,  she  would  have 
driven  all  her  friends  from  her,  and  made  others 
as  miserable  as  she  was  herself.  She  was  a 
sunbeam,  a  life-giving  presence  in  every  family, 


88  Little  Foxes 

by  the  power  of  self-knowledge  and  self-control 
Such  victories  as  this  are  the  victories  of  real 
saints. 

But  if  the   victim   of  these   glooms   is   once 
tempted  to  lift  their  heavy  load  by  the  use  of 
any  stimulus  whatever,  he  or  she  is  a  lost  man 
or  woman.     It  is  from  this  sad  class  more  than 
any  other  that  the  vast  army  of  drunkards  and 
opium-eaters  is  recruited.     Dr.  Johnson,  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  examples   of  the  hypochon- 
driac temperament  which  literature  affords,  has 
expressed  a  characteristic  of  the  race,  in  what 
he  says  of  himself,  that  he  could  "practise  absti- 
nence but  not  temperance."     Hypochondriacs 
who  begin  to  rely  on  stimulus,  almost  without 
exception  find  this  to   be  true.     They  cannot 
they   will   not   be   moderate.     Whatever  stimu 
lant  they  take  for  relief  will  create  an  uncon 
trollable  appetite,  a  burning  passion.     The  tern 
perament  itself  lies  in  the  direction  of  insanity 
It  needs  the  most  healthful,  careful,  even  regi 
men    and  management   to    keep    it    within  the 


Irritability.  89 

bounds  of  soundness  ;  but  the  introductiwi  of 
stimulants  deepens  its  gloom  with  the  shadows 
of  utter  despair. 

All  parents,  in  the  education  of  their  chil- 
dren, should  look  out  for  and  understand  the 
signs  of  this  temperament.  It  appears  in  earl) 
childhood  ;  and  a  child  inclined  to  fits  of  de 
pression  should  be  marked  as  a  subject  of  the 
most  thoughtful,  painstaking  physical  and  moral 
training.  All  over-excitement  and  stimulus 
should  be  carefully  avoided,  whether  in  the 
way  of  study,  amusement,  or  diet.  Judicious 
education  may  do  much  to  mitigate  the  una- 
voidable pains  and  penalties  of  this  most  unde- 
sirable inheritance. 

The  second  class  of  persons  who  need  wis- 
dom in  the  control  of  their  moods  is  that  large 
class  whose  unfortunate  circumstances  make  it 
impossible  for  them  to  avoid  constantly  over- 
doing and  overdrawing  upon  their  nervous  en- 
ergies, and  who  therefore  are  always  exhausted 
and   worn    out.     Poor   souls,   who   *abor    daily 


90  Little  Foxes. 

under  a  burden  too  heavy  for  them,  and  whose 
fretfulness  and  impatience  are  looked  upon  with 
sorrow,  not  anger,  by  pitying  angels.  Poor 
mothers,  with  families  of  little  children  cling- 
ing round  them,  and  a  baby  that  never  lets 
them  sleep ;  hard-working  men,  whose  utmost 
toil,  day  and  night,  scarcely  keeps  the  wolf 
from  the  door  ;  and  all  the  hard-laboring,  heavy- 
laden,  on  whom  the  burdens  of  life  press  fai 
beyond  their  strength. 

There  are  but  two  things  we  know  of  for 
these,  —  two  only  remedies  for  the  irritation 
that  comes  of  these  exhaustions  ;  the  habit  of 
silence  towards  men,  and  of  speech  towards 
God.  The  heart  must  utter  itself  or  burst ; 
but  let  it  learn  to  commune  constantly  and 
intimately  with  One  always  present  and  always 
sympathizing.  This  is  the  great,  the  only  safe- 
guard against  fretfulness  and  complaint.  Thus 
and  thus  only  can  peace  spring  out  of  confu- 
sion, and  the  breaking  chords  of  an  overtaxed 
rv?ture  be  strung  anew  to  a  celestial  harmony 


Ill 


REPRESSION. 

AM  going  now  to  write  on  another  cause 
of  family  unhappiness,  more  subtile  than 
either  of  those  before  enumerated. 

In  the  General  Confession  of  the  Church,  we 
poor  mortals  all  unite  in  saying  two  things  : 
"We  have  left  undone  those  things  which  we 
ought  to  have  done,  and  we  have  done  those 
things  which  we  ought  not  to  have  done." 
These  two  heads  exhaust  the  subject  of  human 
frailty. 

It  is  the  things  left  undone  which  we  ought 
to  have  done,  the  things  left  unsaid  which  we 
ought  to  have  said,  that  constitute  the  subject 
I  am  now  to  treat  of. 

I  remember  my  school-day  speculations  over 
an  old  "  Chemistry  "  I  used  to  stud)'  as  a  text- 
book,  which    informed    me    that    a    substance 


q 2  Little  Foxes. 

called  Caloric  exists  in  all  bodies.  In  some  it 
exists  in  a  latent  state  :  it  is  there,  but  it  af- 
fects neither  the  senses  nor  the  thermometer. 
Certain  causes  develop  it,  when  it  raises  the 
mercury  and  warms  the  hands.  I  remember 
the  awe  and  wonder  with  which,  even  then,  I 
reflected  on  the  vast  amount  of  blind,  deaf,  and 
dumb  comfort  which  Nature  had  thus  stowed 
away.  How  mysterious  it  seemed  to  me  that 
poor  families  every  winter  should  be  shivering, 
freezing,  and  catching  cold,  when  Nature  had 
all  this  latent  caloric  locked  up  in  her  store- 
closet, —  when  it  was  all  around  them,  in  every- 
thing they  touched  and  handled  ! 

In  the  spiritual  world  there  is  an  exact  anal- 
ogy to  this.  There  is  a  great  life-giving,  warm- 
ing power  called  Love,  which  exists  in  human 
hearts  dumb  and  unseen,  but  which  has  no 
real  life,  no  warming  power,  till  set  free  by  ex- 
pression. 

Did  you  ever,  in  a  raw,  chilly  day,  just  be- 
fore a  snow-storm,  sit  at  work  in  a  room  that 


Repression.  93 

was  judiciously  warmed  by  an  exact  thermom- 
eter ?  You  do  not  freeze,  but  you  shiver  ;  your 
fingers  do  not  become  numb  with  cold,  but  you 
have  all  the  while  an  uneasy  craving  for  more 
positive  warmth.  You  look  at  the  empty  grate, 
walk  mechanically  towards  it,  and,  suddenly 
•Awaking,  shiver  to  see  that  there  is  nothing 
there.  You  long  for  a  shawl  or  cloak  ;  you 
draw  yourself  within  yourself;  you  consult  the 
thermometer,  and  are  vexed  to  find  that  there 
is  nothing  there  to  be  complained  of,  —  it  is 
standing  most  provokingly  at  the  exact  temper- 
ature that  all  the  good  books  and  good  doctors 
pronounce  to  be  the  proper  thing,  —  the  golden 
mean  of  health  ;  and  yet  perversely  you  shiver, 
and  feel  as  if  the  face  of  an  open  fire  would  be 
to  you  as  the  smile  of  an  angel. 

Such  a  lifelong  chill,  such  an  habitual  shiver, 
is  the  lot  of  many  natures,  which  are  not  warm, 
when  all  ordinary  rules  tell  them  they  ought  to 
be  warm,  —  whose  life  is  cold  and  barren  and 
meagre,  —  which  never  see  the  blaze  of  an  open 
fire. 


94  Little  Foxes. 

I  will  illustrate  my  meaning  by  a  page  out 
of  my  own  experience. 

I  was  twenty-one  when  I  stood  as  grooms- 
man for  my  youngest  and  favorite  sister  Emily. 
I  remember  her  now  as  she  stood  at  the  altar,  — 
a  pale,  sweet,  flowery  face,  in  a  half-shimmer 
between  smiles  and  tears,  looking  out  of  va- 
pory clouds  of  gauze  and  curls  and  all  the 
vanishing  mysteries  of  a  bridal  morning. 

Everybody  thought  the  marriage  such  a  for- 
tunate one !  —  for  her  husband  was  handsome 
and  manly,  a  man  of  worth,  of  principle  good 
as  gold  and  solid  as  adamant,  —  and  Emmy 
had  always  been  such  a  flossy  little  kitten  of 
a  pet,  so  full  of  all  sorts  of  impulses,  so  sensi- 
tive and  nervous,  we  thought  her  kind,  strong, 
composed,  stately  husband  made  just  on  pur- 
pose for  her.  "  It  was  quite  a  Providence," 
sighed  all  the  elderly  ladies,  who  sniffed  ten- 
derly, and  wiped  their  eyes,  according  to  ap- 
proved custom,  during  the  marriage  ceremony. 

I   remember   now   the  bustle   of  the  day,  — 


Repression.  95 

the  confused  whirl  of  white  gloves,  kisses,  bride- 
maids,  and  bride-cakes,  the  losing  of  trunk- 
keys  and  breaking  of  lacings,  the  tears  of 
mamma — God  bless  her!  —  and  the  jokes  of 
irreverent  Christopher,  who  could,  for  the  life 
of  him,  see  nothing  so  very  dismal  in  the 
whole  phantasmagoria,  and  only  wished  he  were 
as  well  off  himself. 

And  so  Emmy  was  whirled  away  from  us 
on  the  bridal  tour,  when  her  letters  came  back 
to  us  almost  every  day,  just  like  herself,  merry, 
frisky  little  bits  of  scratches,  —  as  full  of  little 
nonsense-beads  as  a  glass  of  Champagne,  and 
all  ending  with  telling  us  how  perfect  he  was, 
and  how  good,  and  how  well  he  took  care  of 
her,  and  how  happy,  etc.,  etc. 

Then  came  letters  from  her  new  home.  His 
house  was  not  yet  built ;  but  while  it  was 
building,  they  were  to  live  with  his  mother,  who 
was  "  such  a  good  woman,"  and  his  sisters,  who 
were  also  "such  nice  women." 

But  somehow,  after  this,  a  change  came  over 


g6  Little  Foxes. 

Emmy's  letters.  They  grew  shorter  ;  they 
seemed  measured  in  their  words ;  and  in  place 
of  sparkling  nonsense  and  bubbling  outbursts 
of  glee,  came  anxiously  worded  praises  of  her 
situation  and  surroundings,  evidently  written 
for  the  sake  of  arguing  herself  into  the  belief 
that  she  was  extremely  happy. 

John*,  of  course,  was  not  as  much  with  her 
now :  he  had  his  business  to  attend  to,  which 
took  him  away  all  day,  and  at  night  he  was 
very  tired.  Still  he  was  very  good  and  thought- 
ful of  her,  and  how  thankful  she  ought  to  be ! 
And  his  mother  was  very  good  indeed,  and  did 
all  for  her  that  she  could  reasonably  expect, — 
of  course  she  could  not  be  like  her  own  mam- 
ma ;  and  Mary  and  Jane  were  very  kind,  — 
"  in  their  way,"  she  wrote,  but  scratched  it  out, 
and  wrote  over  it,  "  very  kind  indeed."  They 
were  the  best  people  in  the  world,  —  a  great 
deal  better  than  she  was  ;  and  she  should  try 
to  learn  a  great  deal  from  them. 

"  Poor  little  Em ! "  I  said  to  myself,  "  I  am 


Repression.  97 

afraid  these  very  nice  people  are  slowly  freez- 
ing and  starving  her."  And  so,  as  I  was  going 
up  into  the  mountains  for  a  summei  tour,  I 
thought  I  would  accept  some  of  John's  many 
invitations  and  stop  a  day  or  two  with  them  on 
my  way,  and  see  how  matters  stood.  John  had 
been  known  among  us  in  college  as  a  taciturn 
fellow,  but  good  as  gold.  I  had  gained  his 
friendship  by  a  regular  siege,  carrying  parallel 
after  parallel,  till,  when  I  came  into  the  fort  at 
last,  I  found  the  treasures  worth  taking. 

I  had  little  difficulty  in  finding  Squire  Evans's 
house.  It  was  the  house  of  the  village,  —  a 
true,  model,  New  England  house,  —  a  square, 
roomy,  old-fashioned  mansion,  which  stood  on  a 
hillside,  under  a  group  of  great,  breezy  old 
elms,  whose  wide,  wind-swung  arms  arched  over 
it  like  a  leafy  firmament.  Under  this  bower 
the  substantial  white  house,  with  all  its  window- 
blinds  closed,  with  its  neat  white  fences  all 
tight  and  trim,  stood  in  its  faultless  green  turfy 
yard,   a   perfect    Pharisee    among    houses.      It 


98  Little  Foxes. 

looked  like  a  house,  all  finished,  done,  com- 
pleted, labelled,  and  set  on  a  shelf  for  preserva- 
tion ;  but,  as  is  usual  with  this  kind  of  edifice 
in  our  dear  New  England,  it  had  not  the  slight- 
est appearance  of  being  lived  in,  not  a  door  or 
window  open,  not  a  wink  or  blink  of  life ;  the 
only  suspicion  of  human  habitation  was  the  thin, 
pale-blue  smoke  from  the  kitchen-chimney. 

And  now  for  the  people  in  the  house. 

In  making  a  New  England  visit  in  winter, 
was  it  ever  your  fortune  to  be  put  to  sleep  in 
the  glacial  spare-chamber,  that  .had  been  kept 
from  time  immemorial  as  a  refrigerator  for 
guests,  —  that  room  which  no  ray  of  daily  sun- 
shine and  daily  living  ever  warms,  whose  blinds 
are  closed  the  whole  year  round,  whose  fire- 
place knows  only  the  complimentary  blaze 
which  is  kindled  a  few  moments  before  bed- 
time in  an  atmosphere  where  you  can  see  your 
breath  ?  Do  you  remember  the  process  of  get- 
ting warm  in  a  bed  of  most  faultless  material, 
with  linen  sheets  and  pillow-cases,  slippery  and 


Repression.  99 

cold  as  ice  ?  You  did  get  warm  at  last,  but  you 
warmed  your  bed  by  giving  out  all  the  heat  of 
your  own  body. 

Such  are  some  families  where  you  visit 
They  are  of  the  very  best  quality,  like  your 
sheets,  but  so  cold  that  it  takes  all  the  vitality 
you  have  to  get  them  warmed  up  to  the  talk- 
ing-point. You  think,  the  first  hour  aftei  your 
arrival,  that  they  must  have  heard  some  report 
to  your  disadvantage,  or  that  you  misunder- 
stood your  letter  of  invitation,  or  that  you  came 
on  the  wrong  day  ;  but  no,  you  find  in  due 
course  that  you  were  invited,  you  were  ex- 
pected, and  they  are  doing  for  you  the  best 
they  know  how,  and  treating  you  as  they  sup- 
pose a  guest  ought  to  be  treated. 

If  you  are  a  warm-hearted,  jovial  fellow,  and 
go  on  feeling  your  way  discreetly,  you  gradually 
thaw  quite  a  little  place  round  yourself  in  the 
domestic  circle,  till,  by  the  time  you  are  ready 
to  leave,  you  really  begin  to  think  it  is  agree- 
able to   .stay,  and  resolve   that   you   will   come 


ioo  Little  Foxes. 

again.  They  are  nice  people  ;  they  like  jiou  ; 
at  last  you  have  got  to  feeling  at  home  with 
them 

Three  months  after,  you  go  to  see  them 
again,  when,  lo !  there  you  are,  back  again  just 
where  you  were  at  first.  The  little  spot  which 
you  had  thawed  out  is  frozen  over  again,  and 
again  you  spend  all  your  visit  in  thawing  it 
and  getting  your  hosts  limbered  and  in  a  state 
for  comfortable  converse. 

The  first  evening  that  I  spent  in  the  wide, 
roomy  front-parlor,  with  Judge  Evans,  his  wife, 
and  daughters,  fully  accounted  for  the  change 
in  Emmy's  letters.  Rooms,  I  verily  believe, 
get  saturated  with  the  aroma  of  their  spiritual 
atmosphere ;  and  there  are  some  so  stately,  so 
correct,  that  they  would  paralyze  even  the 
friskiest  kitten  or  the  most  impudent  Scotch 
terrier.  At  a  glance,  you  perceive,  on  enter- 
ing, that  nothing  but  correct  deportment,  an 
erect  posture,  and  strictly  didactic  conversa* 
tion  is  possible  there. 


Repression.  101 

The  family,  in  fact,  were  all  eminently  didac- 
tic, bent  on  improvement,  laboriously  useful. 
Not  a  good  work  or  charitable  enterprise  could 
put  forth  its  head  in  the  neighborhood,  of  which 
they  were  not  the  support  and  life.  Judge 
Evans   was   the   stay   and   staff  of  the   village 

and  township  of ;   he  bore   up  the  pillars 

thereof.  Mrs.  Evans  was  known  in  the  gates 
for  all  the  properties  and  deeds  of  the  virtu- 
ous woman,  as  set  forth  by  Solomon ;  the  heart 
of  her  husband  did  safely  trust  in  her.  But 
when  I  saw  them,  that  evening,  sitting,  in 
erect  propriety,  in  their  respective  corners  each 
side  of  the  great,  stately  fireplace,  with  its  tall, 
glistening  brass  andirons,  its  mantel  adorned 
at  either  end  with  plated  candlesticks,  with 
the  snuffer-tray  in  the  middle,  —  she  so  col- 
lectedly measuring  her  words,  talking  in  all 
those  well-worn  grooves  of  correct  conversa- 
tion which  are  designed,  as  the  phrase  goes, 
to  "entertain  strangers,"  and  the  Misses  Ev- 
ans, in  the  best  of  grammar  and  rhetoric;,  s~  T 


T02  •  Little  Foxes. 

in  most  proper  time  and  way  possible,  show- 
ing themselves  for  what  they  were,  most  high- 
principled,  well-informed,  intelligent  women, — 
I  set  myself  to  speculate  on  the  cause  of  the 
extraordinary  sensation  of  stiffness  and  restraint 
which  pervaded  me,  as  if  I  had  been  dipped 
in  some  petrifying  spring  and  was  beginning 
to  feel  myself  slightly  crusting  over  on  the 
exterior. 

This  kind  of  conversation  is  such  as  admits 
quite  easily  of  one's  carrying  on  another  course 
of  thought  within ;  and  so,  as  I  found  myself 
like  a  machine,  striking  in  now  and  then  in 
good  time  and  tune,  I  looked  at  Judge  Evans, 
sitting  there  so  serene,  self-poised,  and  cold, 
and  began  to  wonder  if  he  had  ever  been  a 
boy,  a  young  man,  —  if  Mrs.  Evans  ever  was  a 
girl,  —  if  he  was  ever  in  love  with  her,  and 
what  he  did  when  he  was. 

I  thought  of  the  lock  of  Emmy's  hair  which 
I  had  observed  in  John's  writing-desk  in  days 
when  ne  was  falling  in  love  with  her,  —  of  sun 


Repression.  103 

dry  little  movements  in  which  at  awkward  mo- 
ments I  had  detected  my  grave  and  serious 
gentleman  when  I  had  stumbled  accidentally 
upon  the  pair  in  moonlight  strolls  or  retired 
corners,  —  and  wondered  whether  the  models 
of  propriety  before  me  had  ever  been  convicted 
of  any  such  human  weaknesses.  Now,  to  be 
sure,  I  could  as  soon  imagine  the  stately  tongs 
to  walk  up  and  kiss  the  shovel  as  conceive  of 
any  such  bygone  effusion  in  those  dignified  in- 
dividuals. But  how  did  they  get  acquainted  ? 
how  came  they  ever  to  be  married  ? 

I  looked  at  John,  and  thought  I  saw  him 
gradually  stiffening  and  subsiding  into  the  very 
image  of  his  father.  As  near  as  a  young  fel- 
low of  twenty-five  can  resemble  an  old  one  of 
sixty-two,  he  was  growing  to  be  exactly  like 
him,  with  the  same  upright  carriage,  the  same 
silence  and  reserve.  Then  I  looked  at  Emmy: 
she,  too,  was  changed,  —  she,  the  wild  little 
pet,  all  of  whose  pretty  individualities  were 
dear  to  us,  —  that  little  unpunctuated  scrap  of 


104  Little  Foxes. 

life's  poetry,  full  of  little  exceptions  leferable 
to  no  exact  rule,  only  to  be  tolerated  under 
the  wide  score  of  poetic  license.  Now,  as  she 
sat  between  the  two  Misses  Evans,  I  thought 
I  could  detect  a  bored,  anxious  expression  on 
her  little  mobile  face,  —  an  involuntary  watch- 
fulness and  self-consciousness,  as  if  she  were 
trying  to  be  good  on  some  quite  new  pattern. 
She  seemed  nervous  about  some  of  my  jokes, 
and  her  eye  went  apprehensively  to  her  mother- 
in-law  in  the  corner ;  she  tried  hard  to  laugh 
and  make  things  go  merrily  for  me  ;  she  seemed 
sometimes  to  look  an  apology  for  me  to  them, 
and  then  again  for  them  to  me.  For  myself, 
I  felt  that  perverse  inclination  to  shock  people 
which  sometimes  comes  over  one  in  such  situ- 
ations. I  had  a  great  mind  to  draw  Emmy 
on  to  my  knee  and  commence  a  brotherly  romp 
with  her,  to  give  John  a  thump  on  his  very 
upright  back,  and  to  propose  to  one  of  the 
Misses  Evans  to  strike  up  a  waltz,  and  get 
the  parlor  into  a  general  whirl,  before  the  very 


Repression.  105 

face  and  eyes  of  propriety  in  the  corner:   but 
"the  spirits"  were  too  strong  for  me  ;  I  could  n't 

do  it. 

I   remembered   the   innocent,   saucy  freedom 
with  which  Emmy  used  to  treat  her   John  in 
the  days  of  their  engagement,  —  the  little  ways, 
half    loving,   half    mischievous,    in    which    she 
alternately   petted   and    domineered    over   him. 
Now  she  called  him  "  Mr.  Evans,"  with  an  anx- 
ious affectation  of  matronly  gravity.     Had  they 
been  lecturing  her  into  these  conjugal  proprie- 
ties ?     Probably   not.     I   felt    sure,   by   what   I 
now  experienced  in  myself,  that,  were  I  to  live 
in   that   family  one   week,    all   deviations   from 
the   one   accepted   pattern   of   propriety   would 
fall  off,  like   many-colored   sumach-leaves  after 
the   first   hard   frost.     I   began   to   feel   myself 
slowly   stiffening,    my   courage    getting    gently 
chilly.      I    tried   to    tell    a   story,   but   had   to 
mangle   it    greatly,    because   I   felt   in   the   air 
around  me  that  parts  of  it  were  too  vernacu- 
lar  and    emphatic ;    and  then,   as   a  man  who 
5* 


106  Little  Foxes. 

is  freezing  makes  desperate  efforts  to  throw 
off  the  spell,  and  finds  his  brain  beginning  to 
turn,  so  I  was  beginning  to  be  slightly  insane, 
and  was  haunted  with  a  desire  to  say  some 
horribly  improper  or  wicked  thing  which  should 
start  them  all  out  of  their  chairs.  Though 
never  given  to  profane  expressions,  I  perfectly 
hankered  to  let  out  a  certain  round,  unvar- 
nished, wicked  word,  which  I  knew  would  cre- 
ate a  tremendous  commotion  on  the  surface  of 
this  enchanted  mill-pond,  —  in  fact,  I  was  so 
afraid  that  I  should  make  some  such  mad  dem- 
onstration, that  I  rose  at  an  early  hour  and 
begged  leave  to  retire.  Emmy  sprang  up  with 
apparent  relief,  and  offered  to  get  my  candle 
and  marshal  me  to  my  room. 

When  she  had  ushered  me  into  the  chilly 
hospitality  of  that  stately  apartment,  she 
seemed  suddenly  disenchanted.  She  set  down 
the  candle,  ran  to  me,  fell  on  my  neck,  nestled 
her  little  head  under  my  coat,  laughing  and 
crying,  and  calling   me  her  dear  old  boy ;   she 


Repression.  107 

pulled  my  whiskers,  pinched  my  ear,  rum- 
maged my  pockets,  danced  round  me  in  a 
sort  of  wild  joy,  stunning  me  with  a  volley 
of  questions,  without  stopping  to  hear  the  an- 
swer to  one  of  them  ;  in  short,  the  wild  little 
elf  of  old  days  seemed  suddenly  to  come  back 
to  me,  as  I  sat  down  and  drew  her  on  to  my 
knee. 

"  It  does  look  so  like  home  to  see  you,  Chris ! 
—  dear,  dear  home  !  —  and  the  dear  old  folks  ! 
There  never,  never  was  such  a  home !  —  every- 
body there  did  just  what  they  wanted  to,  did  n't 
they,  Chris  ?  —  and  we  love  each  other,  don't 
we  ? " 

"Emmy,"  said  I,  suddenly,  and  very  improp- 
erly, "you  are  n't  happy  here." 

"  Not  happy  ? "  she  said,  with  a  half-fright- 
ened look,  — "  what  makes  you  say  so  ?  O, 
you  are  mistaken.  I  have  everything  to  make 
me  happy.  I  should  be  very  unreasonable  and 
wicked,  if  I  were  not.  I  am  very,  very  happy, 
I  assure  you*     Of  course,  you  know,  everybody 


io8  Little  Foxes. 

can't  be  like  our  folks  at  home.  That  I  should 
not  expect,  you  know,  —  people's  ways  are  dif- 
ferent,—  but  then,  when  you  know  people  are 
so  good,  and  all  that,  why,  of  course  you  must 
be  thankful,  be  happy.  It's  better  for  me  to 
learn  to  control  my  feelings,  you  know,  and 
not  give  way  to  impulses.  They  are  all  so 
good  here,  they  never  give  way  to  their  feel- 
ings, —  they  always  do  right.  O,  they  are  quite 
wonderful ! " 

"  And  agreeable  ? "  said  I. 

"  O  Chris,  we  must  n't  think  so  much  of 
that.  They  certainly  are  n't  pleasant  and  easy, 
as  people  at  home  are ;  but  they  are  never 
cross,  they  never  scold,  they  always  are  good. 
And  we  ought  n't  to  think  so  much  of  living 
to  be  happy  ;  we  ought  to  think  more  of  doing 
right,  doing  our  duty,  don't  you  think  so  ? " 

"  All  undeniable  truth,  Emmy  ;  but,  for  all 
that,  John  seems  stiff  as  a  ramrod,  and  their 
front-parlor  is  like  a  tomb.  You  must  n't  let 
them  petrify  him." 


Repression.  109 

Her  face  clouded  over  a  little. 

"John  is  different  here  from  what  he  was  at 
our  house.  He  has  been  brought  up  differ- 
ently, —  O,  entirely  differently  from  what  we 
were  ;  and  when  he  comes  back  into  the  old 
house,  the  old  business,  and  the  old  place  be- 
tween his  father  and  mother  and  sisters,  he 
goes  back  into  the  old  ways.  He  loves  me  all 
the  same,  but  he  does  not  show  it  in  the  same 
ways,  and  I  must  learn,  you  know,  to  take  it 
on  trust.  He  is  very  busy,  —  works  hard  all 
day,  and  all  for  me  ;  and  mother  says  women 
are  unreasonable  that  ask  any  other  proof  of 
love  from  their  husbands  than  what  they  give 
by  working  for  them  all  the  time.  She  never 
lectures  me,  but  I  know  she  thought  I  was  a 
silly  little  petted  child,  and  she  told  me  one  day 
how  she  brought  up  John.  She  never  petted 
him  ;  she  put  him  away  alone  to  sleep,  from 
the  time  he  was  six  months  old  ;  she  never  fed 
him  out  of  his  regular  hours  when  he  was  a 
baby,  no  matter  how  much  he  cried  ;  she  never 


no  Little  Foxes. 

let  him  talk  baby-talk,  or  have  any  baby-talk 
talked  to  him,  but  was  very  careful  to  make 
him  speak  all  his  words  plain  from  the  very 
first ;  she  never  encouraged  him  to  express  his 
love  by  kisses  or  caresses,  but  taught  him  that 
the  only  proof  of  love  was  exact  obedience.  I 
remember  John's  telling  me  of  his  running  to 
her  once  and  hugging  her  round  the  neck, 
when  he  had  come  in  without  wiping  his  shoes, 
and  she  took  off  his  arms  and  said :  '  My  son, 
this  is  n't  the  best  way  to  show  love.  ■  I  should 
be  much  better  pleased  to  have  you  come  in 
quietly  and  wipe  your  shoes  than  to  come  and 
kiss  me  when  you  forget  to  do  what  I   say.'" 

"Dreadful  old  jade!"  said  I,  irreverently,  be- 
ing then  only  twenty-three. 

"  Now,  Chris,  I  won't  have  anything  to  say 
to  you,  if  this  is  the  way  you  are  going  to 
talk,"  said  Emily,  pouting,  though  a  mischievous 
gleam  darted  into  her  eyes.  "  Really,  however, 
I  think  she  carried  things  too  far,  though  she  is 
so  good.  I  only  said  it  to  excuse  John,  and 
show  how  he  was  brought  up. ' 


Repression.  1 1 1 

"  Poor  fellow  !  "  said  I.  "  I  know  now  why 
he  is  so  hopelessly  shut  up,  and  walled  up. 
Never  a  warmer  heart  than  he  keeps  stowed 
away  there  inside  of  the  fortress,  with  the 
drawbridge  down  and  moat  all  round." 

"  They  are  all  warm-hearted  inside,"  said 
Emily.  "  Would  you  think  she  did  n't  love 
him  ?  Once  when  he  was  sick,  she  watched 
with  him  seventeen  nights  without  taking  off 
her  clothes ;  she  scarcely  •  would  eat  all  the 
time  :  Jane  told  me  so.  She  loves  him  better 
than  she  loves  herself.  It 's  perfectly  dreadful 
sometimes  to  see  how  intense  she  is  when  any- 
thing concerns  him  ;  it  's  her  principle  that 
makes  her  so  cold  and  quiet." 

"  And  a  devilish  one  it  is  ! "  said  I. 

"  Chris,  you  are  really  growing  wicked  ! " 

"  I  use  the  word  seriously,  and  in  good  faith," 
said  I.  "  Who  but  the  Father  of  Evil  ever 
devised  such  plans  for  making  goodness  hate- 
ful, and  keeping  the  most  heavenly  part  of  our 
nature   so   under    lock   and   key   that    for    the 


1 1 2  Little  Foxes. 

greater  part  of  our  lives  we  get  no  use  of  it  ? 
Of  what  benefit  is  a  mine  of  love  burning  where 
it  warms  nobody,  does  nothing  but  blister  the 
soul  within  with  its  imprisoned  heat  ?  Love  re- 
pressed grows  morbid,  acts  in  a  thousand  per- 
verse ways.  These  three  women,  I  '11  venture 
to  say,  are  living  in  the  family  here  like  three 
frozen  islands,  knowing  as  little  of  each  other's 
inner  life  as  if  parted  by  eternal  barriers  of 
ice,  —  and  all  because  a  cursed  principle  in  the 
heart  of  the  mother  has  made  her  bring  them 
up  in  violence  to  Nature." 

"Well,"  said  Emmy,  "sometimes  I  do  pity 
Jane  ;  she  is  nearest  my  age,  and,  naturally,  I 
think  she  was  something  like  me,  or  might 
have  been.  The  other  day  I  remember  hei 
coming  in  looking  so  flushed  and  ill  that  ] 
could  n't  help  asking  if  she  were  unwell.  The 
tears  came  into  her  eyes ;  but  her  mothei 
looked  up,  ;n  her  cool,  business-like  way,  and 
said,  in  her  dry  voice, — 

"  '  Jane,  what 's  the  matter  ? ' 


Repression  113 

" '  O,  my  head  aches  dreadfully,  and  I  have 
pains  in  all  my  limbs  ! ' 

"I  wanted  to  jump  and  run  to  do  something 
tor  her,  —  you  know  at  our  house  we  feel  that 
a  sick  person  must  be  waited  on,  —  but  her 
mother  only  said,  in  the  same  dry  way, — 

" '  Well,  Jane,  you  've  probably  got  a  cold  ; 
go  into  the  kitchen  and  make  yourself  some 
good  boneset  tea,  soak  your  feet  in  hot  water, 
and  go  to  bed  at  once '  ;  and  Jane  meekly  de- 
parted. 

"  I  wanted  to  spring  and  do  these  things  for 
her ;  but  it 's  curious,  in  this  house  I  never 
dare  offer  to  do  anything ;  and  mother  looked 
at  me,  as  she  went  out,  with  a  significant 
nod,  — 

"  '  That 's  always  my  way  ;  if  any  of  the  chil- 
dren are  sick,  I  never  coddle  them  ;  it 's  best 
to  teach  them  to  make  as  light  of  it  as  pos- 
sible.' " 

"Dreadful!"  said  I. 

"Yes,   it   is   dreadful,"    said  Emmy,  drawing 

H 


U4  Little  Foxes. 

her  breath,  as  if  relieved  that  she  might  speak 
her  mind ;  "  it 's  dreadful  to  see  these  people, 
who  I  know  love  each  other,  living  side  by 
side  and  never  saying  a  loving,  tender  word, 
never  doing  a  little  loving  thing,  —  sick  ones 
crawling  off  alone  like  sick  animals,  persisting 
in  being  alone,  bearing  everything  alone.  But 
I  won't  let  them  ;  I  will  insist  on  forcing  my 
way  into  the,#r  rooms.  I  would  go  and  sit  with 
Jane,  and  pet  her  and  hold  her  hand  and 
bathe  her  head,  though  I  knew  it  made  her 
horridly  uncomfortable  at  first ;  but  I  thought 
she  ought  to  learn  to  be  petted  in  a  Christian 
way,  when  she  was  sick.  I  will  kiss  her  too, 
sometimes,  though  she  takes  it  just  like  a  cat 
that  is  n't  used  to  being  stroked,  and  calls  me 
a  silly  girl ;  but  I  know  she  is  getting  to  like 
it.  What  is  the  use  of  people's  loving  each 
other  in  this  horridly  cold,  stingy,  silent  way  ? 
If  one  of  them  were  dangerously  ill  now,  or 
met  with  any  serious  accident,  I  know  there 
would  be  no  end  to  what  the  others  would  do 


Repression.  115 

for  her  ;  if  one  of  them  were  to  die,  the  others 
would  be  perfectly  crushed  :  but  it  would  all 
go  inward,  —  drop  silently  down  into  that  dark, 
cold,  frozen  well ;  they  could  n't  speak  to  each 
other  ;  they  could  n't  comfort  each  other ;  they 
have  lost  the  power  of  expression  ;  they  abso- 
lutely carit." 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  they  are  like  the  fakirs  who 
have  held  up  an  arm  till  it  has  become  stiffened, 
—  they  cannot  now  change  its  position  ;  like 
the  poor  mutes,  who,  being  deaf,  have  become 
dumb  through  disuse  of  the  organs  of  speech. 
Their  education  has  been  like  those  iron  suits 
of  armor  into  which  little  boys  were  put  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  solid,  inflexible,  put  on  in  child- 
hood, enlarged  with  every  year's  growth,  till  the 
warm  human  frame  fitted  the  mould  as  if  it 
had  been  melted  and  poured  into  it.  A  per- 
son educated  in  this  way  is  hopelessly  crippled, 
never  will  be  what  he  might  have  been." 

"  O,  don't  say  that,  Chris  ;  think  of  John ; 
think  how  good  he  is." 


Ii6  Little  Foxes 

"  I  do  think  how  good  he  is,"  —  with  indig- 
nation, —  "  and  how  few  know  it,  too.  I  think, 
that,  with  the  tenderest,  truest,  gentlest  heart, 
the  utmost  appreciation  of  human  friendship, 
he  has  passed  in  the  world  for  a  cold,  proud, 
selfish  man.  If  your  frank,  impulsive,  incisive 
nature  had  not  unlocked  gates  and  opened 
doors,  he  would  never  have  known  the  love  of 
woman  :  and  now  he  is  but  half  disenchanted  ; 
he  every  day  tends  to  go  back  to  stone." 

"  But  I  sha'n't  let  him  ;  O,  indeed,  I  know 
the  danger !  I  shall  bring  him  out.  I  shall 
work  on  them  all.  I  know  they  are  beginning 
to  love  me  a  good  deal :  in  the  first  place,  be- 
cause I  belong  to  John,  and  everything  be- 
longing to  him  is  perfect ;  and  in  the  second 
place  t—  " 

"In  the  second  place,  because  they  expect 
to  weave,  day  after  day,  the  fine  cobweb  lines 
of  their  cold  system  of  repression  around  you, 
which  will  harden  and  harden,  and  tighten  and 
tighten,  till   you  are  as   stiff  and  shrouded  as 


Repression.  f  17 

any  of  them.  You  remind  me  of  our  poor 
little  duck  :   don't  you  remember  him  ? " 

"  Yes,  poor  fellow !  how  he  would  stay  out, 
and  swim  round  and  round,  while  the  pond 
kept  freezing  and  freezing,  and  his  swimming- 
place  grew  smaller  and  smaller  every  day ;  but 
he  was  such  a  plucky  little  fellow  that — " 

"That  at  last  we  found  him  one  morning 
frozen  tight  in,  and  he  has  limped  ever  since 
on  his  poor  feet." 

"O,  but  I  won't  freeze  in,"  she  said,  laugh- 
ing. 

"  Take  care,  Emmy !  You  are  sensitive,  ap- 
probative,  delicately  organized ;  your  whole  na- 
ture inclines  you  to  give  way  and  yield  to  the 
nature  of  those  around  you.  One  little  lone 
duck  such  as  you,  however  warm-blooded,  light- 
hearted,  cannot  keep  a  whole  pond  from  freez- 
ing. While  you  have  any  influence,  you  must 
use  it  all  to  get  John  away  from  these  sur- 
roundings, where  you  can  have  him  to  your- 
self." 


n8  Little  Foxes. 

"  O,  you  know  we  are  building  our  house ; 
we  shall  go  to  housekeeping  soon." 

"  Where  ?  Close  by,  under  the  very  guns  of 
this  fortress,  where  all  your  housekeeping,  all 
your  little  management,  will  be  subject  to  daily 
inspection." 

"But  mamma  never  interferes,  never  advis- 
es, —  unless  I  ask  advice." 

"  No,  but  she  influences ;  she  lives,  she  looks, 
she  is  there ;  and  while  she  is  there,  and  while 
your  home  is  within  a  stone's  throw,  the  old 
spell  will  be  on  your  husband,  on  your  chil- 
dren, if  you  have  any ;  you  will  feel  it  in  the 
air ;  it  will  constrain,  it  will  sway  you,  it  will 
rule  your  house,  it  will  bring  up  your  children." 

O  no !  never !  never !  I  never  could !  I 
never  will !  If  God  should  give  me  a  dear 
little  child,  I  will  not  let  it  grow  up  in  these 
hateful  ways ! " 

"Then,  Emmy,  there  will  be  a  constant,  still, 
undefined,  but  real  friction  of  your  life-power 
from  the  silent  grating  of  your  wishes  and  feel- 


Repression.     .  119 

tngs  on  the  cold,  positive  millstone  of  their 
opinion ;  it  will  be  a  life-battle  with  a  quiet, 
invisible,  pervading  spirit,  who  will  never  show 
himself  in  fair  fight,  but  who  will  be  around 
you  in  the  very  air  you  breathe,  at  your  pil- 
low when  you  lie  down  and  when  you  rise. 
There  is  so  much  in  these  friends  of  yours 
noble,  wise,  severely  good,  —  their  aims  are  so 
high,  their  efficiency  so  great,  their  virtues  so 
many,  —  that  they  will  act  upon  you  with  the 
force  of  a  conscience,  subduing,  drawing,  insen- 
sibly constraining  you  into  their  moulds.  They 
have  stronger  wills,  stronger  natures  than 
yours ;  and  between  the  two  forces  of  your 
own  nature  and  theirs  you  will  be  always 
oscillating,  so  that  you  will  never  show  what 
you  can  do,  working  either  in  your  own  way 
or  yet  in  theirs :  your  life  will  be  a  failure." 
"  O  Chris,  why  do  you  discourage  me  ? " 
"  I  am  trying  tonic  treatment,  Emily ;  I  am 
showing  you  a  real  danger;  I  am  rousing  you 
to  flee  from  it.     John  is  making  money  fast ; 


120  Little  Foxes. 

there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  always  re- 
main buried  in  this  town.  Use  your  influence 
as  they  do,  —  daily,  hourly,  constantly,  —  to 
predispose  him  to  take  you  to  another  sphere. 
Do  not  always  shrink  and  yield ;  do  not  con- 
ceal and  assimilate  and  endeavor  to  persuade 
him  and  yourself  that  you  are  happy ;  do  not 
put  the  very  best  face  to  him  on  it  all ;  do  not 
tolerate  his  relapses  daily  and  hourly  into  his 
habitual,  cold,  inexpressive  manner ;  and  don't 
lay  aside  your  own  little  impulsive,  outspoken 
ways.  Respect  your  own  nature,  and  assert 
it ;  woo  him,  argue  with  him  ;  use  all  a  wo- 
man's weapons  to  keep  him  from  falling  back 
into  the  old  Castle  Doubting  where  he  lived 
till  you  let  him  out.  Dispute  your  mother's 
hateful  dogma,  that  love  is  to  be  taken  for 
granted  without  daily  proof  between  lovers ; 
cry  down  latent  caloric  in  the  market ;  insist 
that  the  mere  fact  of  being  a  wife  is  not 
enough,  —  that  the  words  spoken  once,  years 
ago,   are   not  enough,  —  that    love   needs   new 


Repression.  121 

leaves  every  summer  of  life,  as  much  as  youi 
elm-trees,  and 'new  branches  to  grow  broader 
and  wider,  and  new  flowers  at  the  root  to 
cover  the  ground." 

"  O,  but  I  have  heard  that  there  is  no  surer 
way  to  lose  love  than  to  be  exacting,  and  that 
it  never  comes  for  a  woman's  reproaches." 

"All  true  as  Gospel,  Emmy.  I  am  not 
speaking  of  reproaches,  or  of  unreasonable 
self-assertion,  or  of  ill-temper,  —  you  could  not 
use  any  of  these  forces,  if  you  would,  you  poor 
little  chick!  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  high- 
est duty  we  owe  our  friends,  the  noblest,  the 
most  sacred,  —  that  of  keeping  their  own  noble- 
ness, goodness,  pure  and  incorrupt.  Thought- 
less, instinctive,  unreasoning  love  and  self-sac- 
rifice, such  as  many  women  long  to  bestow  on 
husband  and  children,  soil  and  lower  the  very 
objects  of  their  love.  You  may  grow  saintly 
by  self-sacrifice ;  but  do  your  husband  and  chil- 
dren grow  saintly  by  accepting  it  without  re- 
turn ?     I  have  seen  a  verse  which  says,  — 

6 


122  L  ittle  Foxes. 

1  They  who  kneel  at  woman's  shrine 
"Breathe  on  it  as  they  bow.' 

Is  not  this  true  of  all  unreasoning  love  and 
self-devotion  ?  If  we  let  our  friend  become 
cold  and  selfish  and  exacting  without  a  remon- 
strance, we  are  no  true  lover,  no  true  friend. 
Any  good  man  soon  learns  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  remonstrance  that  comes  from  a  wo- 
man's love  to  his  soul,  her  concern  for  his 
honor,  her  anxiety  for  his  moral  development, 
and  the  pettish  cry  which  comes  from  her  own 
personal  wants.  It  will  be  your  own  fault,  if, 
for  lack  of  anything  you  can  do,  your  husband 
relapses  into  these  cold,  undemonstrative  hab- 
its which  have  robbed  his  life  of  so  much 
beauty  and  enjoyment.  These  dead,  barren 
ways  of  living  are  as  unchristian  as  they  are 
disagreeable ;  and  you,  as  a  good  little  Chris 
tian  sworn  to  fight  heroically  under  Christ's 
banner,  must  make  headway  against  this  sort 
of  family  Antichrist,  though  it  comes  with  a 
show    of    superior    sanctity  xand    self-sacrifice , 


Repression.  123 

Remember,  dear,  that  the  Master's  family  had 
its  outward  tokens  of  love  as  well  as  its  in- 
ward life.  The  beloved  leaned  on  His  bosom ; 
and  the  traitor  could  not  have  had  a  sign  for 
his  treachery,  had  there  not  been  a  daily  kiss 
at  meeting'  and  parting  with  His  children." 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  said  all  this,"  said  Em- 
ily, "because  now  I  feel  stronger  for  it.  It 
does  not  now  seem  so  selfish  for  me  to  want 
what  it  is  better  for  John  to  give.  Yes,  I  must 
seek  what  will  be  best  for  him." 

And  so  the  little  one,  put  on  the  track  of 
self-sacrifice,  began  to  see  her  way  clearer,  as 
many  little  women  of  her  sort  do.  Make  them 
look  on  self-assertion  as  one  form  of  martyr- 
dom, and  they  will  come  into  it. 

But,  for  all  my  eloquence  on  this  evening, 
the  house  was  built  in  the  selfsame  spot  as 
projected ;  and  the  family  life  went  on,  under 
the  shadow  of  Judge  Evans's  elms,  much  as  if 
I  had  no"  spoken.  Emmy  became  mother  of 
two  fine     ovely  boys,  and  waxed  dimmer  and 


124  Little  Foxes. 

fainter ;  while  with  her  physical  decay  came 
increasing  need  of  the  rule  in  the  household 
of  mamma  and  sisters,  who  took  her  up  ener- 
getically on  eagles'  wings,  and  kept  her  house, 
and  managed  her  children :  for  what  can  be 
done  when  a  woman  hovers  half  her  time  be- 
tween life  and  death  ? 

At  last  I  spoke  out  to  John,  that  the  climate 
and  atmosphere  were  too  severe  for  her  who 
had  become  so  dear  to  him,  —  to  them  all ;  and 
then  they  consented  that  the  change  much 
talked  of  and  urged,  but  always  opposed  by 
the  parents,  should  be  made. 

John  bought  a  pretty  cottage  in  our  neigh- 
borhood, and  brought  his  wife  and  boys ;  and 
the  effect  of  change  of  moral  atmosphere  veri- 
fied all  my  predictions.  In  a  year  we  had  oui 
own  blooming,  joyous,  impulsive  little  Emily 
once  more,  —  full  of  life,  full  of  cheer,  full  of 
energy,  —  looking  to  the  ways  of  her  house- 
hold, —  the  merry  companion  of  her  growing 
boys,  —  the   blithe   empress  over  her   husband, 


Repression.  125 

who  took  to  her  genial  sway  as  in  the  old 
happy  days  of  courtship.  The  nightmare  was 
past,  and  John  was  as  joyous  as  any  of  us  in 
his  freedom.  As  Emmy  said,  he  was  turned 
right  side  out  for  life  ;  and  we  all  admired  the 
pattern.     And  that  is  the  end  of  my  story. 

And  now  for  the  moral,  —  and  that  is,  that 
life  consists  of  two  parts,  —  Expression  and  Re- 
pression,—  each  of  which  has  its  solemn  du- 
ties. To  love,  joy,  hope,  faith,  pity,  belongs 
the  duty  of  expression:  to  anger,  envy,  malice, 
revenge,  and  all  uncharitableness,  belongs  the 
'  duty  of  repression. 

Some  very  religious  and  moral  people  err 
by  applying  repression  to  both  classes  alike. 
They  repress  equally  the  expression  of  love 
and  of  hatred,  of  pity  and  of  anger.  Such 
forget  one  great  law,  as  true  in  the  moral 
world  as  in  the  physical,  —  that  repression  les- 
sens and  deadens.  Twice  or  thrice  mowing 
will  kill  off  the  sturdiest  crop  of  weeds ;  the 
roots  die  for  want  of  expression.     A  compr~~  • 


126  Little  Foxes. 

on  a  limb  will  stop  its  growing ;  the  surgeon 
knows  this,  and  puts  a  tight  bandage  around 
a  tumor ;  but  what  if  we  put  a  tight  bandage 
about  the  heart  and  lungs,  as  some  young 
ladies  of  my  acquaintance  do,  —  or  bandage 
the  feet,  as  they  do  in  China  ?  And  what  if 
we  bandage  a  nobler  inner  faculty,  and  wrap 
love  in  grave-clothes  ? 

But  again  there  are  others,  and  their  num- 
ber is  legion,  —  perhaps  you  and  I,  reader,  may 
know  something  of  it  in  ourselves,  —  who  have 
an  instinctive  habit  of  repression  in  regard  to 
all  that  is  noblest  and  highest  within  them, 
which  they  do  not  feel  in  their  lower  and 
more  unworthy  nature. 

It  comes  far  easier  to  scold  our  friend  in  an 
angry  moment  than  to  say  how  much  we  love, 
honor,  and  esteem  him  in  a  kindly  mood. 
Wrath  and  bitterness  speak  themselves  and  go 
with  their  own  force ;  love  is  shame-faced,  looks 
shyly  out  of  the  window,  lingers  long  at  the 
tW>r-latch. 


Repression.  127 

How  much  freer  utterance  among  many  good 
Christians  have  anger,  contempt,  and  censori- 
ousness,  than  tenderness  and  love !  /  hate  is 
Si  d  loud  and  with  all  our  force.  /  love  is  said 
wLh  a  hesitating  voice  and  blushing  cheek. 

Iu  an  angry  mood  we  do  an  injury  to  a 
lovrn^  heart  with  good,  strong,  free  emphasis ; 
but  w.»  stammer  and  hang  back  when  our 
diviner  nature  tells  us  to  confess  and  ask  par- 
don. £ven  when  our  heart  is  broken  with 
repentance,  we  haggle  and  linger  long  before 
we  can 

"  Throw  away  the  worser  part  of  it" 

How  many  live  a  stingy  and  niggardly  life 
in  regard  to  their  richest  inward  treasures ! 
They  livv  with  those  they  love  dearly,  whom 
a  few  mo  /  words  and  deeds  expressive  of  this 
love  would  make  so  much  happier,  richer,  and 
better ;  and  v.hey  cannot,  will  not,  turn  the  key 
and  give  it  out.  People  who  in  their  very 
souls  really  d  <  love,  esteem,  reverence,  almost 
worship   eacl      »ther,  live   a   barrm,   chilly   life 


128  Little  Foxes. 

side  by  side,  busy,  anxious,  preoccupied,  letting 
their  love  go  by  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  last 
year's  growth,  with  no  present  buds  and  blos- 
soms. 

Are  there  not  sons  and  daughters  who  have 
parents  living  with  them  as  angels  unawares,  — 
husbands  and  wives,  brothers  and  sisters,  in 
whom  the  material  for  a  beautiful  life  lies 
locked  away  in  unfruitful  silence,  —  who  give 
time  to  everything  but  the  cultivation  and  ex- 
pression of  mutual  love  ? 

The  time  is  coming,  they  think,  in  some  far 

future,  when  they  shall  find  leisure  to  enjoy 
each  other,  to  stop  and   rest  side  by  side,  to 

discover  to   each  other   these  hidden  treasures 

which  lie  idle  and  unused. 

Alas !  time  flies  and  death  steals  on,  and 
we  reiterate  the  complaint  of  one  in  Scrip- 
ture,—  "It  came  to  pass,  while  thy  servant 
was  busy  hither  and  thither,  the  man  was 
gone." 

The  bitterest  tears  shed  over  graves  are  for 


Repression.  1 29 

words  left  unsaid  and  deeds  left  undone.  "  She 
never  knew  how  I  loved  her."  "  He  never 
knew  what  he  was  to  me."  "I  always  meant 
to  make  more  of  our  friendship."  "  I  did  not 
know  what  he  was  to  me  till  he  was  gone." 
Such  words  are  the  poisoned  arrows  which 
cruel  Death  shoots  backward  at  us  from  the 
door  of  the  sepulchre. 

How  much  more  we  might  make  of  our  fam- 
ily life,  of  our  friendships,  if  every  secret 
thought  of  love  blossomed  into  a  deed !  We 
are  not  now  speaking  merely  of  personal  ca- 
resses. These  may  or  may  not  be  the  best 
language  of  affection.  Many  are  endowed  with 
a  delicacy,  a  fastidiousness  of  physical  organi- 
zation, which  shrinks  away  from  too  much  of 
these,  repelled  and  overpowered.  But  there 
are  words  and  looks  and  little  observances, 
thoughtfulnesses,  watchful  little  attentions,  which 
speak  of  love,  which  make  it  manifest,  and  there 
is  scarce  a  family  that  might  not  be  richer  in 
heart-wealth  for  more  oi   them. 

6*  1 


130  L  ittle  Foxes. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  relations 
must  of  course  love  each  other  because  they 
are  relations.  Love  must  be  cultivated,  and 
can  be  increased  by  judicious  culture,  as  wild 
fruits  may  double  their  bearing  under  the  hand 
of  a  gardener ;  and  love  can  dwindle  and  die 
out  by  neglect,  as  choice  flower-seeds  planted 
in  poor  soil  dwindle  and  grow  single. 

Two  causes  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  nature  pre- 
vent this  easy  faculty  and  flow  of  expression 
which  strike  one  so  pleasantly  in  the  Italian 
or  the  French  life :  the  dread  of  flattery,  and 
a  constitutional  shyness. 

"I  perfectly  longed  to  tell  So-and-so  how  I 
admired  her,-  the  other  day,"  says  Miss  X. 

"  And  why  in  the  world  did  n't  you  tell 
her?" 

"O,  it  would  seem  like  flattery,  you  know." 

Now  what  is  flattery  ? 

Flattery  is  insincere  praise  given  from  inter- 
ested motives,  not  the  sincere  utterance  to  a 
friend  of  what  we  deem  good  and  lovely  in 
him. 


Repression  1 3 1 

And  so,  for  lear  of  flattering,  these  dread- 
fully sincere  poople  go  on  side  by  side  with 
those  they  love  and  admire,  giving  them  all 
the  time  the  impression  of  utter  indifference. 
Parents  are  so  afraid  of  exciting  pride  and 
vanity  in  their  children  by  the  expression  of 
their  love  and  approbation,  that  a  child  some- 
times goes  sad  and  discouraged  by  their  side, 
and  learns  with  surprise,  in  some  chance  way, 
that  they  are  proud  and  fond  of  him.  There 
are  times  when  the  open  expression  of  a  fa- 
ther's love  would  be  worth  more  than  church 
or  sermon  to  a  boy ;  and  his  father  cannot 
utter  it,  will  not  show  it. 

The  other  thing  that  represses  the  utterances 
of  love  is  the  characteristic  shyness  of  the  An- 
glo-Saxon blood.  Oddly  enough,  a  race  born 
of  two  demonstrative,  out-spoken,  nations  — 
the  German  and  the  French  —  has  an  habit- 
ual reserve  that  is  like  neither.  There  is  a 
powerlessness  of  utterance  in  our  blood  that 
we  should  fight  against,  and  struggle  outward 


132  ■    Little  Foxes. 

towards  expression.  We  can  educate  ourselves 
to  it,  if  we  know  and  feel  the  necessity ;  we 
can  make  it  a  Christian  duty,  not  only  to  love, 
but  to  be  loving,  —  not  only  to  be  true  friends, 
but  to  show  ourselves  friendly.  We  can  make 
ourselves  say  the  kind  things  that  rise  in  our 
hearts  and  tremble  back  on  our  lips,  —  do  the 
gentle  and  helpful  deeds  which  we  long  to  do 
and  shrink  back  from  ;  and,  little  by  little,  it 
will  grow  easier,  —  the  love  spoken  will  bring 
back  the  answer  of  love,  —  the  kind  deed  will 
bring  back  a  kind  deed  in  return,  —  till  the 
hearts  in  the  family-circle,  instead  of  being  so 
many  frozen,  icy  islands,  shall  be  full  of  warm 
airs  and  echoing  bird-voices  answering  back 
and  forth  with  a  constant  melody  of  love. 


IV. 

PERSISTENCE. 

TV /T  Y  little  foxes  are  interesting  little  beasts; 
and  I  only  hope  my  reader  will  not  get 
tired  of  my  charming  menagerie  before  I  have 
done  showing  him  their  nice  points.  He  must 
recollect  there  are  seven  of  them,  and  as  yet 
we  have  shown  up  only  three  ;  so  let  him  have 
patience. 

As  before  stated,  little  foxes  are  the  little  pet 
sins  of  us  educated  good  Christians,  who  hope 
that  we  are  above  and  far  out  of  sight  of  steal- 
ing, lying,  and  those  other  gross  evils  against 
which  we  pray  every  Sunday,  when  the  Ten 
Commandments  are  read.  They  are  not  gen- 
erally considered  of  dignity  enough  to  be  fired 
at  from  the  pulpit ;  they  seem  to  us  too  trifling 
to  be  remembered  in  church  ;  they  are  like  the 
red  spiders  on  plants,  —  too  small  for  the  per- 


134  L  ittfe  Foxes. 

i 

ception  of  the  naked  eye,  and  only  to  be  known 

by  the  shrivelling  and  dropping  of  leaf  after 
leaf  that  ought  to  be  green  and  flourishing. 

I  have  another  little  fox  in  my  eye,  who  is 
most  active  and  most  mischievous  in  despoil- 
ing the  vines  of  domestic  happiness,  —  in  fact, 
#ho  has  been  guilty  of  destroying  more  grapes 
than  anybody  knows  of.  His  name  I  find  it 
difficult  to  give  with  exactness.  In  my  enume- 
ration I  called  him  Self -Will ;  another  name 
for  him  —  perhaps  a  better  one  —  might  be 
Persistence. 

Like  many  another,  this  fault  is  the  over- 
action  of  a  most  necessary  and  praiseworthy 
quality.  The  power  of  firmness  is  given  to 
man  as  the  very  granite  foundation  of  life. 
Without  it,  there  would  be  nothing  accom- 
plished ;  aH  human  plans  would  be  unstable  as 
water  on  an  inclined  plane.  In  every  well- 
constituted  nature  there  must  be  a  power  of 
tenacity,  a  gift  of  perseverance  of  will ;  and 
that   man    might   not  be  without  a  foundation 


Persistence.  135 

tor  so  needful  a  property,  the  Creator  has  laid 
it  in  an  animal  faculty,  which  he  possesses  in 
common  with  the  brutes. 

The  animal  power  of  firmness  is  a  brute 
force,  a  matter  of  brain  and  spinal  cord,  differ- 
ing in  different  animals.  The  force  by  which 
a  bulldog  holds  on  to  an  antagonist,  the  per- 
sistence with  which  a  mule  will  plant  his  four 
feet  and  set  himself  against  blows  and  menaces, 
are  good  examples  of  the  pure  animal  phase  of 
a  property  which  exists  in  human  beings,  and 
forms  the  foundation  for  that  heroic  endurance, 
for  that  perseverance,  which  carries  on  all  the 
great  and  noble  enterprises  of  life. 

The  domestic  fault  we  speak  of  is  the  wild, 
uncultured  growth  of  this  faculty,  the  instinctive 
action  of  firmness  uncontrolled  by  reason  or 
conscience,  —  in  common  parlance,  the  being 
" set  in  ones  way!'  It  is  the  animal  instinct  of 
being  "  set  in  one's  way  "  which  we  mean  by 
self-will  or  persistence  ;  and  in  domestic  life  it 
does  the  more  mischief  from  its  working  as  an 


1 36  Little  Foxes. 

instinct  unwatched  by  reason  and  unchallenged 
by  conscience. 

In  that  pretty  new  cottage  which  you  see 
on  yonder  knoll  are  a  pair  of  young  people  just 
in  the  midst  of  that  happy  bustle  which  attends 
the  formation  of  a  first  home  in  prosperous  cir- 
cumstances, and  with  all  the  means  of  making 
it  charming  and  agreeable.  Carpenters,  uphol- 
sterers, and  artificers  await  their  will ;  and  there 
remains  for  them  only  the  pleasant  task  of  ar- 
ranging and  determining  where  all  their  pretty 
and  agreeable  things  shall  be  placed.  Our 
He'ro  and  Leander  are  decidedly  nice  people, 
who  have  been  through  all  the  proper  stages 
of  being  in  love  with  each  other  for  the  requi- 
site and  suitable  time.  They  have  written  each 
other  a  letter  every  day  for  two  years,  begin- 
ning with  "My  dearest,"  and  ending  with 
"  Your  own,"  etc.  ;  they  have  sent  each  other 
flowers  and  rings  and  locks  of  hair ;  they  have 
worn  each  other's  pictures  on  their  hearts ; 
they   have  spent  hours  and   hours  talking  over 


Persistence.  137 

all  subjects  under  the  sun,  and  are  convinced 
that  never  was  there  such  sympathy  of  souls, 
such  unanimity  of  opinion,  such  a  just,  reason- 
able, perfect  foundation  for  mutual  esteem. 

Now  it  is  quite  true  that  people  may  have 
a  perfect  agreement  and  sympathy  in  their 
higher  intellectual  nature,  —  may  like  the  same 
books,  quote  the  same  poetry,  agree  in  the 
same  principles,  be  united  in  the  same  religion, 
—  and  nevertheless,  when  they  come  together 
in  the  simplest  affair  of  every-day  business,  may 
find  themselves  jarring  and  impinging  upon 
each  other  at  every  step,  simply  because  there 
are  to  each  person,  in  respect  of  daily  personal 
habits  and  personal  likes  and  dislikes,  a  thou- 
sand little  individualities  with  which  reason  has 
nothing  to  do,  which  are  not  subjects  for  the 
use  of  logic,  and  to  which  they  never  think  of 
applying  the  power  of  religion,  —  which  can 
only  be  set  down  as  the  positive  ultimate  facts 
of  existence  with  two  people. 

Suppose  a  blue-jay  courts  and  wins  and  weds 


138  Little  Foxes. 

a  Baltimore  oriole.  During  courtship  there  may 
have  been  delightful  sympathetic  conversation 
on  the  charm  of  being  free  birds,  the  felicity 
of  soaring  in  the  blue  summer  air.  Mr.  Jay 
may  have  been  all  humility  and  all  ecstasy  in 
comparing  the  discordant  screech  of  his  own 
note  with  the  warbling  tenderness  of  Miss 
Oriole.  But,  once  united,  the  two  commence 
business  relations.  He  is  firmly  convinced  that 
a  nest  built  among  the  reeds  of  a  marsh  is  the 
only  reasonable  nest  for  a  bird  ;  she  is  positive 
that  she  should  die  there  in  a  month  of  damp 
and  rheumatism.  She  never  heard  of  going  to 
housekeeping  in  anything  but  a  nice  little  pen- 
dulous bag  swinging  down  from  under  the 
branches  of  a  breezy  elm  ;  he  is  sure  he  should 
have  water  on  the  brain  before  summer  was 
over,  from  constant  vertigo,  in  such  swaying, 
unsteady  quarters,  —  he  would  be  a  sea-sick 
blue-jay  on  land,  and  he  cannot  think  of  it. 
She  knows  now  he  don't  love  her,  or  he  never 
would  think  of  shutting  her  up  in  an  old  mouldy 


Persistence.  139 

nest  where  she  is  sure  she  shall  have  the  chills  ; 
and  he  knows  she  does  n't  love  him,  or  she 
never  would  want  to  make  him  uncomfortable 
all  his  days  by  tilting  and  swinging  him  about 
as  no  decent  bird  ought  to  be  swung.  Both 
are  dead-set  in  their  own  way  and  opinion ;  and 
how  is  either  to  be  convinced  that  the  way 
which  seemeth  right  unto  the  other  is  not  best  ? 
Nature  knows  this,  and  therefore,  in  her  feath- 
ered tribes,  blue-jays  do  not  mate  with  orioles  ; 
and  so  bird-housekeeping  goes  on  in  peace. 

But  men  and  women  as  diverse  in  their 
physical  tastes  and  habits  as  blue-jays  and  ori- 
oles are  wooing  and  wedding  every  day,  and 
coming  to  the  business  of  nest-building,  alias 
housekeeping,  with  predilections  as  violent,  and 
as  incapable  of  any  logical  defence,  as  the  ori- 
ole's partiality  for  a  swing-nest  and  the  jay's 
preference  of  a  nest  among  the  reeds. 

Our  Hero  and  Leander,  there,  who  are  ar- 
ranging their  cottage  to-day,  are  examples  just 
in  point     They  have  both  of  them  been    only 


140  Little  Foxes. 

children,  —  both  the  idols  of  circles  where  they 
have  been  universally  deferred  to.     Each  in  his 
or  her  own  circle  has  been  looked  up  to  as  a 
model  of  good  taste,  and  of  course  each  has  the 
habit  of  exercising  and  indulging  very  distinct 
personal  tastes.     They  truly,  deeply  esteem,  re- 
spect, and   love  each  >other,   and   for  the  very 
best  of  reasons,  —  because  there  are  sympathies 
of  the  very  highest  kind  between  them.     Both 
are  generous  and  affectionate, — both  are  highly 
cultured  in  intellect  and  taste,  —  both  are  ear- 
nestly religious  ;  and  yet,  with  all  this,  let  me 
tell  you  that  the  first  year  of  their  married  life 
will  be  worthy  to  be  recorded  as  a  year  of  bat- 
tles.    Yes,  these  friends  so  true,  these  lovers  so 
ardent,   these  individuals  in  themselves  so   ad 
mirable,  cannot  come  into  the  intimate  relations 
of  life  without  an  effervescence  as  great  as  that 
of  an  acid  and  alkali ;  and  if  will  be   impossi- 
ble to  decide  which  is  mosf  'In  faalt,  the  acid 
or   the  alkali,  both  being   ir    tkei'   way  of  the 
very  best  quality. 


Persistence.  141 

The  reason  of  it  all  is,  that  both  are  intensely 
H set  in' their  way"  and  the  ways  of  no  two  hu- 
man beings  are  altogether  coincident.  Both  of 
them  have  the  most  sharply  defined,  exact 
tastes  and  preferences.  In  the  simplest  matter 
both  have  a  way,  —  an  exact  way,  —  which 
seems  to  be  dear  to  them  as  life's  blood.  In 
the  simplest  appetite  or  taste  they  know  ex- 
actly what  they  want,  and  cannot,  by  any  argu- 
ment, persuasion,  or  coaxing,  be  made  to  want 
anything  else. 

For  example,  this  morning  dawns  bright  upon 
them,  as  she,  in  her  tidy  morning  wrapper  and 
trimly  laced  boots,  comes  stepping  over  the 
bales  and  boxes  which  are  discharged  on  the 
verandah  ;  while  he,  for  joy  of  his  new  acqui- 
sition, can  hardly  let  her  walk  on  her  own 
pretty  .feet,  and  is  making  every  fond  excuse 
to  lift  her  over  obstacles  and  carry  her  into 
her  new  dwelling  in  triumph. 

Carpets  are  put  down,  the  floors  glow  under 
the  hands  of  obedient  workmen,  and  now  the 
furniture  is  being  wheeled  in. 


142  Little  Foxes. 

"  Put  the  piano  in  the  bow-window,"  says  the 
lady. 

"  No,  not  in  the  bow-window,"  says  the  gen- 
tleman. 

"Why,  my  dear,  of  course  it  must  go  in  the 
bow-window.  How  awkward  it  would  look 
anywhere  else  !  I  have  always  seen  pianos  in 
bow-windows." 

"  My  love,  certainly  you  would  not  think  of 
spoiling  that  beautiful  prospect  from  the  bow- 
window  by  blocking  it  up  with  the  piano.  The 
proper  place  is  just  here,  in  the  corner  of  the 
room.     Now  try  it." 

"  My  dear,  I  think  it  looks  dreadfully  there  ; 
it  spoils  the  appearance  of  the  room." 

"  Well,  for  my  part,  my  love,  I  think  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  room  would  be  spoiled,  if  you 
filled  up  the  bow-window.  Think  what  a  love- 
ly place  that  would  be  to  sit  in ! " 

"Just  as  if  we  couldn't  sit  there  behind  the 
piano,  if  we  wanted  to ! "  says  the  lady. 

"  But  then,  how  much  more  ample  and  airy 


Persistence.  143 

tht  room  looks  as  you  open  the  door,  and  see 
through  the  bow-window  down  that  little  glen, 
and  that  distant  peep  of  the  village-spire ! " 

"  But  I  never  could  be  reconciled  to  the 
piano  standing  in  the  corner  in  that  way,"  says 
the  lady.  "  /  insist  upon  it,  it  ought  to  stand 
in  the  bow-window :  it 's  the  way  mamma's 
stands,  and  Aunt  Jane's,  and  Mrs.  Wilcox's  ; 
everybody  has  their  piano  so." 

"  If  it  comes  to  insisting"  says  the  gentle- 
man, "  it  strikes  me  that  is  a  game  two  can 
play  at." 

"  Why,  my  dear,  you  know  a  lady's  parlor 
is  her  own  ground." 

"  Not  a  married  lady's  parlor,  I  imagine.  I 
believe  it  is  at  least  equally  her  husband's,  as 
he  expects  to  pass  a  good  portion  of  his  time 
there." 

"  But  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  insist  on  an 
arrangement  that  really  is  disagreeable  to  me," 
says  the  lady. 

"  And   I  don't  think  you  ought  to  insist  on 


144  Little  Foxes. 

an  arrangement   that   is  really  disagreeable  to 
me,"  says  the  gentleman. 

And  now  Hero's  cheeks  flush,  and  the  spirit 
burns  within,  as  she  says, — 

"Well,  if  you  insist  upon  it  I  suppose  it 
must  be  as  you  say  ;  but  I  shall  never  take 
any  pleasure  in  playing  on  it "  ;  and  Hero 
sweeps  from  the  apartment,  leaving  the  victor 
very  unhappy  in  his  conquest. 

He  rushes  after  her,  and  finds  her  up-stairs 
sitting  disconsolate  and  weeping  on  a  packing- 
box. 

"  Now,  Hero,  how  silly !  Do  have  it  your 
own  way.     I  '11  give  it  up." 

"  No,  —  let  it  be  as  you  say.  I  forgot  that 
it  was  a  wife's  duty  to  submit." 

"  Nonsense,  Hero !  Do  talk  like  a  rational 
woman.     Don't  let  us  quarrel  like  children." 

"  But  it 's  so  evident  that  I  was  in  the 
right." 

"  My  dear,  I  cannot  concede  that  you  were 
in  the  right ;  but  I  am  willing  it  should  be  as 
you  say." 


Persistence.  145 

*  Now  I  perfectly  wonder,  Leander,  that  you 
don't  see  how  awkward  your  way  is.  It  would 
make  me  nervous  every  time  I  came  into  the 
room,  and  it  would  be  so  dark  in  that  corner 
that  I  never  could  see  the  notes." 

"  And  I  wonder,  Hero,  that  a  woman  of  your 
taste  don't  see  how  shutting  up  that  bow-win- 
dow spoils  the  parlor.  It 's  the  very  prettiest 
feature  of  the  room." 

And  so  round  and  round  they  go,  stating  and 
restating  their  arguments,  both  getting  more 
and  more  nervous  and  combative,  both  declar- 
ing themselves  perfectly  ready  to  yield  the 
point  as  an  oppressive  exaction,  but  to  do 
battle  for  their  own  opinion  as  right  and  rea- 
son, —  the  animal  instinct  of  self-will  meanwhile 
rising  and  rising  and  growing  stronger  and 
stronger  on  both  sides.  But  meanwhile  in  the 
heat  of  argument  some  side-issues  and  personal 
reflections  fly  out  like  splinters  in  the  shivering 
of  lances.  He  tells  her,  in  his  heat,  that  her 
notions  are  formed  from  deference  to  models 
7  J 


146  Little  Foxes. 

in  fashionable  life,  and  that  she  has  no  idea 
of  adaptation,  —  and  she  tells  him  that  he  is 
domineering,  and  dictatorial,  and  wanting  to 
have  everything  his  own  way ;  and  in  fine,  this 
battle  is  fought  off  and  on  through  the  day, 
with  occasional  armistices  of  kisses  and  mak- 
ings-up,  —  treacherous  truces,  which  are  all 
broken  up  by  the  fatal  words,  "  My  dear,  after 
all,  you  must  admit  /  was  in  the  right,"  which 
of  course  is  the  signal  to  fight  the  whole  battle 
over  again. 

One  such  prolonged  struggle  is  the  parent 
of  many  lesser  ones,  —  the  aforenamed  splinters 
of  injurious  remark  and  accusation,  which  flew 
out  in  the  heat  of  argument,  remaining  and  fes- 
tering and  giving  rise  to  nervous  soreness  ;  yet, 
where  there  is  at  the  foundation  real,  genuine 
love,  and  a  good  deal  of  it,  the  pleasure  of 
making  up  so  balances  the  pain  of  the  contro- 
versy that  the  two  do  not  perceive  exactly  what 
they  are  doing,  nor  suspect  that  so  deep  and 
wide  a  love  as  theirs  can  be  seriously  affected 
by  causes  so  insignificant. 


Persistence.  147 

But  the  cause  of  difficulty  in  both,  the  silent, 
unwatched,  intense  power  of  self-will  in  trifles, 
is  all  the  while  precipitating  them  into  new 
encounters.  For  example,  in  a  bright  hour  be- 
tween the  showers,  Hero  arranges  for  her-  Lean- 
der  a  repast  of  peace  and  good-will,  and  com- 
pounds for  him  a  salad  which  is  a  chef  d'ceuvre 
among  salads.  Leander  is  also  bright  and  pro- 
pitious ;  but  after  tasting  the  salad,  he  pushes 
it  silently  away. 

"My  dear,  you  don't  like  your  salad." 

"  No,  my  dear  ;  I  never  eat  anything  with 
salad  oil  in  it." 

"  Not  eat  salad  oil !  How  absurd  !  I  never 
heard  of  a  salad  without  oil."  And  the  lady 
looks  disturbed. 

"  But,  my  dear,  as  I  tell  you,  I  never  take 
it.     I  prefer  simple  sugar  and  vinegar." 

"  Sugar  and  vinegar  !  Why,  Leander,  I  'm 
astonished !  How  very  bourgeois /  You  must 
really  try  to  like  my  salad "  —  (spoken  in  a 
coaxing   tone) 


148  Little  Foxes. 

"My  dear,  1  never  try  to  like  anything  new, 
I  am  satisfied  with  my  old  tastes." 

"  Well,  Leander,  I  must  say  that  is  very  un 
gracious  and  disobliging  of  you." 

"  Why  any  more  than  for  you  to  annoy  me 
by  forcing  on  me  what  I  don't  like  ? " 

"  But  you  would  like  it,  if  you  would  only 
try.  People  never  like  olives  till  they  have 
eaten  three  or  four,  and  then  they  become  pas* 
sionately  fond  of  them." 

"  Then  I  think  they  are  very  silly  to  go 
through  all  that  trouble,  when  there  are  enough 
things  that  they  do  like." 

"  Now,  Leander,  I  don't  think  that  seems 
amiable  or  pleasant  at  all.  I  think  we  ought 
to  try  to  accommodate  ourselves  to  the  tastes 
of  our  friends." 

"  Then,  my  dear,  suppose  you  try  to  like  your 
salad  with  sugar  and  vinegar." 

"  But  it 's  so  gauche  and  unfashionable  !  Did 
you  ever  hear  of  a  salad  made  with  sugar  and 
vinegar  on  a  table  in  good   society  ? " 


Persistence.  149 

<l  My  mother's  table,  I  believe,  was  good  so- 
ciety, and  I  learned  to  like  it  there.  The  truth 
is,  Hero,  for  a  sensible  woman,  you  are  too 
fond  of  mere  fashionable  and  society  notions." 

"  Yes,  you  told  me  that  last  week,  and  I 
think  it  was  very  unjust,  —  very  unjust,  indeed" 
—  (uttered  with  emphasis). 

"  No  more  unjust  than  your  telling  me  that 
I  was  dictatorial  and  obstinate." 

"  Well,  now,  Leander,  dear,  you  must  confess 
that  you  are  rather  obstinate." 

"I  don't  see  the  proof." 

"You  insist  on  your  own  ways  and  opinions 
so,  heaven  and  earth  won't  turn  you." 

"  Do  I  insist  on  mine  more  than  you  on 
yours  ? " 

"Certainly,  you  do." 

"1  don't  think  so." 

Hero  casts  up  her  eyes  and  repeats  with 
expression,  — 


"  O,  wad  some  power  the  giftie  gie  us 
To  see  oursels  as  others  see  us  1 " 


150  Little  Foxes 

"  Precisely,"  says  Leander.  "  I  would  that 
prayer  were  answered  in  your  case,  my  dear." 

"  I  think  you  take  pleasure  in  provoking 
me,"  says  the  lady. 

"  My  dear,  how  silly  and  childish  all  this  is  ! " 
says  the  gentleman.  "Why  can't  we  let  each 
other  alone  ? " 

"You  began  it." 

"  No,  my  dear,  begging  your  pardon,  I  did 
not." 

"  Certainly,  Leander,  you  did." 

Now  a  conversation  of  this  kind  may  go  on 
hour  after  hour,  as  long  as  the  respective  par- 
ties have  breath  and  strength,  botn  oecoming 
secretly  more  and  more  "set  in  their  way." 
On  both  sides  is  the  consciousness  that  they 
might  end  it  at  once  by  a  very  simple  conces- 
sion. 

S^e  might  say,  —  "Well,  dear,  you  shall  al- 
ways have  your  salad  as  you  like "  ;  and  he 
might  say,  — "  My  dear,  I  will  try  to  like  your 
salad,  if  you  care  much  about  it"  ;  and  if  either 


Persistence,  1 5 1 

A  them  would  utter  one  of  these  sentences,  the 
other  would  soon  follow.  Either  would  give 
up,  if  the  other  would  set  the  example  ;  but  as 
it  is,  they  remind  us  of  nothing  so  much  as  two 
cows  that  we  have  seen  standing  with  locked 
horns  in  a  meadow,  who  can  neither  advance 
nor  recede  an  inch.  It  is  a  mere  deadlock  of 
the  animal  instinct  of  firmness  ;  reason,  con- 
science, religion,  have  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

The  questions  debated  in  this  style  by  our 
young  couple  were  surprisingly  numerous  ;  as, 
foi  example,  whether  their  favorite  copy  of 
Turner  should  hang  in  the  parlor  or  in  the 
library,  —  whether  their  pet  little  landscape 
should  hang  against  the  wall,  or  be  placed  on 
an  easel,  —  whether  the  bust  of  the  Venus  de 
Milos  should  stand  on  the  marble  table  in  the 
hall,  or  on  a  bracket  in  the  library ;  all  of 
which  points  were  debated  with  a  breadth  of 
survey,  a  richness  of  imagery,  a  vigor  of  dis- 
cussion, that  would  be  perfectly  astonishing  to 
any  one  who  did  not  know  how  much  two  very 


152  Little  Foxes. 

self-willed  argumentative  people  might  find  to 
say  on  any  point  under  heaven.  Everything 
in  classical  antiquity,  —  everything  in  Kugler's 
"  Hand-Book  of  Painting,"  —  every  opinion  of 
living  artists,  —  besides  questions  social,  moral, 
and  religious,  —  all  mingled  in  the  grand  melee: 
because  there  is  nothing  in  creation  that  is  not 
somehow  connected  with  everything  else. 

Dr.  Johnson  has  said,  —  "There  are  a  thou- 
sand familiar  disputes  which  reason  never  can 
decide  ;  questions  that  elude  investigation,  and 
make  logic  ridiculous ;  cases  where  something 
must  be  done,  and  where  little  can  be  said." 

With  all  deference  to  the  great  moralist,  we 
must  say  that  this  statement  argues  a  very 
limited  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  talk  pos- 
sessed by  two  very  cultivated  and  ^ery  self- 
willed  persons  fairly  pitted  against  each  other 
in  practical  questions ;  the  logic  may  indeed 
be  ridiculous,  but  such  people  as  our  Hero 
and  Leander  find  no  cases  under  the  sun  where 
something  is  to  be  done,  yet.  where  little  can  be 


Persistence.  153 

.said.  And  these  wretched  wranglings,  this  in- 
terminable labyrinth  of  petty  disputes,  waste 
and  crumble  away  that  high  ideal  of  truth  and 
tenderness,  which  the  real,  deep  sympathies 
and  actual  worth  of  their  characters  entitled 
them  to  form.  Their  married  life  is  not  what 
they  expected ;  at  times  they  are  startled  by 
the  reflection  that  they  have  somehow  grown 
unlovely  to  each  other ;  and  yet,  if  Leandei 
goes  away  to  pass  a  week,  and  thinks  of  hu 
Hero  in  the  distance,  he  can  compare  no  othei 
woman  to  her ;  and  the  days  seem  long  and 
the  house  empty  to  Hero  while  he  is  gone , 
both  wonder  at  themselves  when  they  look  ovei 
their  petty  bickerings,  but  neither  knows  ex- 
actly how  to  catch  the  little  fox  that  spoils 
their  vines. 

It  is  astonishing  how  much  we  think  about 
ourselves,  yet  to  how  little  purpose,  —  how  very 
clever  people  will  talk  and  wonder  about  them- 
selves and  each  other,  and  yet  go  on  year  after 
year,  not  knowing  how  to  use  either  themselves 

7* 


154  Little  Foxes. 

or  each  other,  —  not  having  as  much  practical 
philosophy  in  the  matter  of  their  own  charac- 
ters and  that  of  their  friends  as  they  have  in 
respect  of  the  screws  of  their  gas-fixtures  or 
the  management  of  their  water-pipes. 

"But  /  won't  have  any  such  scenes  with  my 
wife,"  says  Don  Positivo.  "  I  won't  marry  one 
of  your  clever  women  ;  they  are  always  posi- 
tive and  disagreeable.  /  look  for  a  wife  of  a 
gentle  and  yielding  nature,  that  shall  take  her 
opinions  from  me,  and  accommodate  her  tastes 
to  mine."  And  so  Don  Positivo  goes  and  mar- 
ries a  pretty  little  pink-and-white  concern,  so 
lisping  and  soft  and  delicate  that  he  is  quite 
sure  she  cannot  have  a  will  of  her  own.  She 
is  the  moon  of  his  heavens,  to  shine  only  by 
his  reflected  light. 

We  would  advise  our  gentlemen  friends  who 
wish  to  enjoy  the  felicity  of  having  their  own 
way  not  to  try  the  experiment  with  a  pretty 
fool ;  for  the  obstinacy  of  cleverness  and  reason 
is  nothing  to  the  obstinacy  of  folly  and  in- 
anity. 


Persistence.  155 


Let  our  friend  once  get  in  the  seat  opposite 
to  him  at  table  a  pretty  creature  who  cries  for 
the  moon,  and  insists  that  he  don't  love  her 
because  he  does  n't  get  it  for  her ;  and  in  vain 
may  he  display  his  superior  knowledge  of  as- 
tronomy, and  prove  to  her  that  the  moon  is 
not  to  be  got.  She  listens  with  her  head  on 
one  side,  and  after  he  has  talked  himself  quite 
out  of  breath,  repeats  the  very  same  sentence 
she  began  the  discussion  with,  without  varia- 
tion or  addition. 

If  she  wants  darling  Johnny  taken  away  from 
school,  because  cruel  teachers  will  not  give  up 
the  rules  of  the  institution  for  his  pleasure,  in 
vain  does  Don  Positivo,  in  the  most  select  and 
superior  English,  enlighten  her  on  the  neces- 
sity of  habits  of  self-control  and  order  for  a 
boy,  —  the  impossibility  that  a  teacher  should 
make  exceptions  for  their  particular  darling,— 
the  absolute,  perishing  need  that  the  boy  should 
begin  to  do  something.  She  hears  him  all 
through,  and  then  says,  "  I  don't  know  anything 


156  Little  Foxes. 

about  that.  I  know  what  I  want ;  I  want 
Johnny  taken  away."  And  so  she  weeps,  sulks, 
storms,  entreats,  lies  awake  nights,  has  long  fits 
of  sick-headache,  —  in  short,  shows  that  a  pretty 
animal,  without  reason  or  cultivation,  can  be, 
in  her  way,  quite  as  formidable  an  antagonist 
as  the  most  clever  of  her  sex. 

Leander  can  sometimes  vanquish  his  Hero 
in  fair  fight  by  the  weapons  of  good  logic, 
because  she  is  a  woman  capable  of  appreciat- 
ing reason,  and  able  to  feel  the  force  of  the 
considerations  he  adduces ;  and  when  he  does 
vanquish  and  carry  her  captive  by  his  bow 
and  spear,  he  feels  that  he  has  gained  «a  vic- 
tory over  no  ignoble  antagonist,  and  he  be- 
comes a  hero  in  his  own  eyes.  Though  a  wo- 
man of  much  will,  still  she  is  a  woman  of  much 
reason  ;  and  if  he  has  many  vexations  with  her 
pertinacity,  he  is  never  without  hope  in  her 
good  sense ;  but  alas  for  him  whose  wife  has 
only  the  animal  instinct  of  firmness,  without 
any  development  of  the  judgment  or  reasoning 


Persistence.  15* 

fajulties !     The  conflicts  with  a  woman  whoir 
a  man  respects  and  admires  are  often  extremel) 
trying ;    but   the   conflicts   with   one  whom   hf 
cannot  help  despising,  become  in  the  end  sim 
ply  disgusting. 

But  the  inquiry  now  arises,  What  shall  be 
done  with  all  the  questions  Dr.  Johnson  speaks 
of,  which  reason  cannot  decide,  which  elude 
investigation,  and  make  logic  ridiculous,  —  cases 
where  something  must  be  done,  and  where  little 
can  be   said  ? 

Read  Mrs.  Ellis's  "Wives  of  England,"  and 
you  have  one  solution  of  the  problem.  The 
good  women  of  England  are  there  informed 
that  there  is  to  be  no  discussion,  that  every- 
thing in  the  menage  is  to  follow  the  rule  of  the 
lord,  and  that  the  wife  has  but  one  hope, 
namely,  that  grace  may  be  given  him  to  know 
exactly  what  his  own  will  is.  "  Vetat,  Jest 
mot"  is  the  lesson  which  every  English  hus- 
band learns  of  Mrs.  Ellis,  and  we  should  judge 
from  the  pictures  of   English  novels  that  this 


i 58  Little  Foxes. 

"awful  right  divine"  is  insisted  on  in  detail  in 
domestic  life. 

Miss  Edgeworth  makes  her  magnificent  Gen- 
eral Clarendon  talk  about  his  "commands"  to 
his  accomplished  and  elegant  wife ;  and  he 
rin^s  the  parlor-bell  with  such  an  air,  calls  up 
and  interrogates  trembling  servants  with  such 
awful  majesty,  and  lays  about  him  generally 
in  so  very  military  and  tremendous  a  style, 
that  we  are  not  surprised  that  poor  little  Cecilia 
is  frightened  into  lying,  being  half  out  of  her 
wits  in  terror  of  so  very  martial  a  husband. 

During  his  hours  of  courtship  he  majestically 
informs  her  mother  that  he  never  could  con- 
sent to  receive  as  his  wife  any  woman  who 
has  had  another  attachment ;  and  so  the  poor 
puss,  like  a  naughty  girl,  conceals  a  little  school- 
girl flirtation  of  bygone  days,  and  thus  gives 
rise  to  most  agonizing  and  tragic  scenes  with 
her  terrible  lord,  who  petrifies  her  one  morn- 
ing by  suddenly  drawing  the  bed-curtains  and 
flapping  an  old  love-letter  in  her  eyes,  asking, 


Persistence.  159 

'  in  tones  of  suppressed  thunder,  "  Cecilia,  is 
this  youi   writing  ?  " 

The  more  modern  female  novelists  of  Eng- 
land give  us  representations  of  their  view  of 
the  right  divine  no  less  stringent.  In  a  very 
popular  story,  called  "Agatha's  Husband,"  the 
plot  is  as  follows.  A  man  marries  a  beautiful 
girl  with  a  large  fortune.  Before  the  marriage, 
he  discovers  that  his  brother,  who  has  been 
guardian  of  the  estate,  has  fraudulently  squan- 
dered the  property,  so  that  it  can  only  be  re- 
trieved by  the  strictest  economy.  For  the  sake 
of  getting  her  heroine  into  a  situation  to  illus- 
trate her  moral,  the  authoress  now  makes  her 
hero  give  a  solemn  promise  not  to  divulge  to 
his  wife  or  to  any  human  being  the  fraud  by 
which  she  suffers. 

The  plot  of  the  story  then  proceeds  to  show 
how  very  badly  the  young  wife  behaves  when 
her  husband  takes  her  to  mean  lodgings,  de- 
prives her  of  wonted  luxuries  and  comforts, 
and   obstinately   refuses   to    give   any   kind   of 


i6o  Little  Foxes. 

sensible  reason  for  his  conduct.  Instead  of 
looking  up  to  him  with  blind  faith  and  unques- 
tioning obedience,  following  his  directions  with- 
out inquiry,  and  believing  not  only  without  evi- 
dence, but  against  apparent  evidence,  that  he 
is  the  soul  of  honor  and  wisdom,  this  perverse 
Agatha  murmurs,  complains,  thinks  herself  very 
ill-used,  and  occasionally  is  even  wicked  enough, 
in  a  very  mild  way,  to  say  so,  —  whereat  her 
husband  looks  like  a  martyr  and  suffers  in 
silence ;  and  thus  we  are  treated  to  a  volume 
of  mutual  distresses,  which  are  at  last  ended 
by  the  truth  coming  out,  the  abused  husband 
mounting  the  throne  in  glory,  and  the  penitent 
wife  falling  in  the  dust  at  his  feet,  and  confess- 
ing what  a  wretch  she  has  been  all  along  to 
doubt  him. 

The  authoress  of  "  Jane  Eyre "  describes  the 
process  of  courtship  in  much  the  same  terms 
as  one  would  describe  the  breaking  of  a  horse. 
Shirley  is  contumacious  and  self-willed,  and 
Moore,  her  lover  and  tutor,  gives  her  "Le  Cheval 


Persistence.  161 

ilompte'"  for  a  French  lesson,  as  a  gentle  inti- 
mation of  the  work  he  has  in  hand  in  paying 
her  his  addresses  ;  and  after  long  struggling 
against  his  power,  when  at  last  she  consents  to 
his  love,  he  addresses  her  thus,  under  the  figure 
of  a  very  fierce  leopardess  :  — 

"  Tame  or  wild,  fierce  or  subdued,  you  are 
fnine!' 

And  she  responds  :  — 

"  I  am  glad  I  know  my  keeper  and  am  used 
to  him.  Only  his  voice  will  I  follow,  only  his 
hand  shall  manage  me,  only  at  his  feet  will  I 
repose." 

The  accomplished  authoress  of  "  Nathalie " 
represents  the  struggles  of  a  young  girl  en- 
gaged to  a  man  far  older  than  herself,  extremely 
dark  and  neroic,  fond  of  behaving  in  a  very 
unaccountable  manner,  and  declaring,  neverthe- 
less, in  awful  and  mysterious  tones,  that  he  has 
such  a  passion  for  being  believed  in,  that,  if 
any  one  of  his  friends,  under  the  most  suspi- 
cious  circumstances,    admits   one  doubt  of    his 


1 62  Little  Foxes. 

honor,  all  will  be  over  between  them  for- 
ever. 

After  establishing  his  power  over  Nathalie 
fully,  and  amusing  himself  quietly  for  a  time 
with  the  contemplation  of  her  perplexities  and 
anxieties,  he  at  last  unfolds  to  her  the  myste- 
rious counsels  of  his  will  by  declaring  to  an- 
other of  her  lovers,  in  her  presence,  that  he 
"has  the  intention  of  asking  this  young  lady 
to  become  his  wife."  During  the  engagement, 
however,  he  contrives  to  disturb  her  tranquillity 
by  insisting  prematurely  on  the  right  divine 
of  husbands,  and,  as  she  proves  fractious,  an- 
nounces to  her,  that,  much  as  he  loves  her,  he 
sees  no  prospect  of  future  happiness  m  their 
union,  and  that  they  had  better  part. 

The  rest  of  the  story  describes  the  struggles 
and  anguish  of  the  two,  who  pass  through  a 
volume  of  distresses,  he  growing  more  cold, 
proud,  severe,  and  misanthropic  than  ever,  all 
of  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  fault  of  naughty 
Miss  Nathalie,  who  might  have  made  a  saint 


Persistence.  163 

of  him,  could  she  only  have  found  her  highest 
pleasure  in  letting  him  have  his  own  way.  Her 
conscience  distresses  her ;  it  is  all  her  fault ;  at 
last,  worn  out  in  the  strife,  she  resolves  to  be 
a  good  girl,  goes  to  his  library,  finds  him  alone, 
and,  in  spite  of  an  insulting  reception,  humbles 
herself  at  his  feet,  gives  up  all  her  naughty 
pride,  begs  to  be  allowed  to  wait  on  him  as  a 
handmaid,  and  is  rewarded  by  his  graciously 
announcing,  that,  since  she  will  stay  with  him 
at  all  events,  she  may  stay  as  his  wife  ;  and  the 
story  leaves  her  in  the  last  sentence  sitting  in 
what  we  are  informed  is  the  only  true  place 
of  happiness  for  a  woman,  at  her  husband's 
feet. 

This  is  the  solution  which  the  most  culti- 
vated women  of  England  give  of  the  domestic 
problem. 

According  to  these  fair  interpreters  of  Eng- 
lish ideas,  the  British  lion  on  his  own  domestic 
hearth,  standing  in  awful  majesty  with  his  back 
to  the  fire  and  his  hands  under  his  coat-tails, 


164  Little  Foxes. 

can  >e  supposed  to  have  no  such  disreputable 
discussions  as  we  have  described  ;  since  his 
partner,  as  Miss  Bronte  says,  has  learned  to 
know  her  keeper,  and  her  place  at  his  feet,  and 
can  conceive  no  happiness  so  great  as  hanging 
the  picture  and  setting  the  piano  exactly  as  he 
likes. 

Of  course  this  will  be  met  with  a  general 
shriek  of  horror  on  the  part  of  our  fair  repub- 
lican friends,  and  an  equally  general  disclaimer 
on  the  part  of  our  American  gentlemen,  who, 
so  far  as  we  know,  would  be  quite  embarrassed 
by  the  idea  of  assuming  any  such  pronounced 
position  at  the  fireside. 

The  genius  of  American  institutions  is  not 
towards  a  display  of  authority.  All  needed  au- 
thority exists  among  us,  but  exists  silently,  with 
as  little  external  manifestation  as  possible. 

Our  President  is  but  a  fellow-citizen,  person- 
ally the  equal  of  other  citizens.  We  obey  him 
because  we  have  chosen  him,  and  because  we 
find    it    convenient,  in    regulating    our    affairs, 


Persistence.  165 

to    have    one    final    appeal    and    one    deciding 
voice. 

The  position  in  which  the  Bible  and  the  mar- 
riage service  place  the  husband  in  the  family 
amounts  to  no  more.  He  is  the  head  of  the 
family  in  all  that  relates  to  its  material  interests, 
its  legal  relations,  its  honor  and  standing  in 
society  ;  and  no  true  woman  who  respects  her- 
self would  any  more  hesitate  to  promise  to 
yield  to  him  this  position  and  the  deference 
it  implies  than  an  officer  of  state  to  yield  to 
the  President.  But  because  Mr.  Lincoln  is  of- 
ficially above  Mr.  Seward,  it  does  not  follow 
that  there  can  be  nothing  between  them  but 
absolute  command  on  the  one  part  and  prostrate 
submission  on  the  other  ;  neither  does  it  follow 
that  the  superior  claims  in  all  respects  to  regu- 
late the  affairs  and  conduct  of  the  inferior. 
There  are  still  wide  spheres  of  individual  free- 
dom, as  there  are  in  the  case  of  husband  and 
wife  ;  and  no  sensible  man  but  would  feel 
himself  ridiculous  in  entering  another's  proper 
sphere  with  the  voice  of  authority. 


1 66  Little  Foxes. 

The  inspired  declaration,  that  "the  husband 
is  the  head  of  the  wife,  even  as  Christ  is  the 
head  of  the  Church,"  is  certainly  to  be  quali- 
fied by  the  evident  points  of  difference  in  the 
subjects  spoken  of.  It  certainly  does  not  mean 
that  any  man  shall  be  invested  with  the  rights 
of  omnipotence  and  omniscience,  but  simply 
that  in  the  family  state  he  is  the  head  and 
protector,  even  as  in  the  Church  is  the  Sav- 
iour. It  is  merely  the  announcement  of  a 
great  natural  law  of  society  which  obtains 
through  all  the  tribes  and  races  of  men,  —  a 
great  and  obvious  fact  of  human  existence. 

The  silly  and  senseless  reaction  against  this 
idea  in  some  otherwise  sensible  women  is,  I 
think,  owing  to  the  kind  of  extravagances  and 
overstatements  to  which  we  have  alluded.  It 
is  as  absurd  to  cavil  at  the  word  obey  in  the 
marriage  ceremony  as  for  a  military  officer  to 
set  himself  against  the  etiquette  of  the  army, 
or  a  man  to  refuse  the  freeman's  oath. 

Two  young  men  every  way  on  a  footing  of 


Persistence.  16/ 

equality  and  friendship  may  be  one  of  them  a 
battalion-commander  and  the  other  a  staff-offi- 
cer. It  would  be  alike  absurd  for  the  one  to 
take  airs  about  not  obeying  a  man  every  way 
Irs  equal,  and  for  the  other  to  assume  airs  ot 
lordly  dictation  out  of  the  sphere  of  his  military 
duties.  The  mooting  of  the  question  of  mar- 
ital authority  between  two  well-bred,  well-edu- 
cated Christian  people  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tvy  is  no  less  absurd. 

While  the  husband  has  a  certain  power  con- 
fided to  him  for  the  support  and  maintenance 
of  the  family,  and  for  the  preservation  of  those 
relations  which  involve  its  good  name  and  well- 
being  before  the  world,  he  has  no  claim  to  an 
authoritative  exertion  of  will  in  reference  to  the 
little  personal  tastes  and  habits  of  the  interior. 
He  has  no  divine  right  to  require  that  every- 
thing shall  be  arranged  to  please  him,  at  the 
expense  of  his  wife's  preferences  and  feelings, 
any  more  than  if  he  we*e  not  the  head  of  the 
household.     In  a  thousand    md-flfereni:   matters 


1 68  Little  Foxes. 

which  do  not  touch  the  credit  and  respecta 
bility  of  the  family,  he  is  just  as  much  bound 
sometimes  to  give  up  his  own  will  and  way  for 
the  comfort  of  his  wife  as  she  is  in  certain 
other  matters  to  submit  to  his  decisions.  In  a 
large  number  of  cases  the  husband  and  wife 
stand  as  equal  human  beings  before  God,  and 
the  indulgence  of  unchecked  and  inconsiderate 
self-will  on  either  side  is  a  sin. 

It  is  my  serious  belief  that  writings  such  as 
we  have  been  considering  do  harm  both  to  men 
and  women,  by  insensibly  inspiring  in  the  one 
an  idea  of  a  licensed  prerogative  of  selfishness 
and  self-will,  and  in  the  other  an  irrational  and 
indiscreet  servility. 

Is  it  any  benefit  to  a  man  to  find  in  the  wife 
of  his  bosom  the  flatterer  of  his  egotism,  the  ac- 
quiescent victim  of  his  little  selfish  exactions,  to 
be  nursed  and  petted  and  cajoled  in  all  his  faults 
and  fault-findings,  and  to  see  everybody  falling 
prostrate  before  his  will  in  the  domestic  circle  ? 
Is  this  the  true  way  to  make  him  a  manly  and 


Persistence.  169 

Christ-like  man  ?  It  is  my  belief  that  many  so- 
called  good  wives  have  been  accessory  to  mak- 
ing their  husbands  very  bad  Christians. 

However,  then,  the  little  questions  of  differ- 
ence in  every-day  life  are  to  be  disposed  of  be- 
tween two  individuals,  it  is  in  the  worst  possible 
taste  and  policy  to  undertake  to  settle  them  by 
mere  authority.  All  romance,  all  poetry,  all 
beauty  are  over  forever  with  a  couple  between 
whom  the  struggle  of  mere  authority  has  begun. 
No,  there  is  no  way  out  of  difficulties  of  this  de- 
scription but  by  the  application,  on  both  sides, 
of  good  sense  and  religion  to  the  little  differ- 
ences of  life. 

A  little  reflection  will  enable  any  person  to 
detect  in  himself  that  setness  in  trifles  which  is 
the  result  of  the  unwatched  instinct  of  self-will 
and  to  establish  over  himself  a  jealous  guardian- 
ship. 

Every*  man  and  every  woman,  in  their  self- 
training  and  self-culture,  should  study  the  art 
of  giving  up  in  little  things  with  a  good  grace. 
8 


r/o  Little  Foxes. 

The  :naim  of  polite  society  is  formed  by  that 
sort  of  freedom  and  facility  in  all  the  members 
of  a  circle  which  makes  each  one  pliable  to  the 
influences  of  the  others,  and  sympathetic  to 
slide  into  the  moods  and  tastes  of  others  without 
a  jar. 

In  courteous  and  polished  circles,  there  are  no 
stiff  railroad-tracks,  cutting  straight  through 
everything,  and  grating  harsh  thunders  all  along 
their  course,  but  smooth,  meandering  streams, 
tranquilly  bending  hither  and  thither  to  every 
undulation  of  the  flowery  banks.  What  makes 
the  charm  of  polite  society  would  make  no  less 
the  charm  of  domestic  life  ;  but  it  can  come  only 
by  watchfulness  and  self-discipline  in  each  indi- 
vidual. 

Some  people  have  much  more  to  struggle 
with  in  this  way  than  others.  Nature  has 
made  them  precise  and  exact.  They  are  punc- 
tilious in  their  hours,  rigid  in  their  habits, 
pained  by  any  deviation  from  regular  rule. 

Now   Nature   is   always    perversely   ordering 


Persistence.  iyi 

dhat  men  and  women  of  just  this  disposition 
should  become  desperately  enamored  of  their 
exact  opposites.  The  man  of  rules  and  formu- 
las and  hours  has  his  heart  carried  off  by  a 
gay,  careless  little  chit,  who  never  knows  the 
day  of  the  month,  tears  up  the  newspaper,  lo- 
ses the  door-key,  and  makes  curl-papers  out  of 
the  last  bill ;  or,  per  contra,  our  exact  and  pre- 
cise little  woman,  whose  belongings  are  like 
the  waxen  cells  of  a  bee,  gives  her  heart  to 
some  careless  fellow,  who  enters  her  sanctum 
in  muddy  boots,  upsets  all  her  little  nice  house- 
hold divinities  whenever  he  is  going  on  a 
hunting  or  fishing  bout,  and  can  see  no  man- 
ner of  sense  in  the  discomposure  she  feels  in 
the  case. 

What  can  such  couples  do,  if  they  do  not 
adopt  the  compromise  of  reason  and  sense, — 
if  each  arms  his  or  her  own  peculiarities  with 
the  back  force  of  persistent  self-will,  and  runs 
them  over  the  territories  of  the  other? 

A  sensible  man  and  woman,  finding  them- 


172  Little  Foxes. 

selves  thus  placed,  can  govern  themselves  by 
a  just  philosophy,  and,  instead  of  carrying  on 
a  life-battle,  can  modify  their  own  tastes  and 
requirements,  turn  their  eyes  from  traits  which 
do  not  suit  them  to  those  which  do,  resolving, 
at  all  events,  however  reasonable  be  the  taste 
or  propensity  which  they  sacrifice,  to  give  up 
all  rather  than  have  domestic  strife. 

There  is  one  form  which  persistency  takes 
that  is  peculiarly  trying :  I  mean  that  persis- 
tency of  opinion  which  deems  it  necessary  to 
stop  and  raise  an  argument  in  self-defence  on 
the  slightest  personal  criticism. 

John  tells  his  wife  that  she  is  half  an  hour 
late  with  her  breakfast  this  morning,  and  she 
indignantly   denies  it. 

"  But  look  at  my  watch  !  " 

"Your  watch  is  n't  right." 

"I   set  it  by  railroad  time." 

"  Well,  that  was  a  week  ago ;  that  watch  of 
yours  always  gains." 

"No,  my  dear,  you  're  mistaken." 


Persistence.  173 

'Indeed  I'm  not.  Did  I  not  heai  you  tell- 
ing  Mr.   B about  it?" 

"My  dear,  that  was  a  year  ago,  —  before  I 
had  it  cleaned." 

"  How  can  you  say  so,  John  ?  It  was  only 
a  month  ago." 

"My  dear,  you  are  mistaken." 

And  so  .the  contest  goes  on,  each  striv- 
ing for  the  last  word. 

This  love  of  the  last  word  has  made  more 
bitterness  in  families  and  spoiled  more  Chris- 
tians than  it  is  worth.  A  thousand  little  dif- 
ferences of  this  kind  would  drop  to  the  ground, 
if  either  party  would  let  them  drop.  Suppose 
John  is  mistaken  in  saying  breakfast  is  late, 
—  suppose  that  fifty  of  the  little  criticisms  which 
we  make  on  one  another  are  well-  or  ill-found- 
ed, are  they  worth  a  discussion  ?  Are  they 
worth  ill-tempered  words,  such  as  are  al- 
most sure  to  grow  out  of  a  discussion  ?  Are 
they  worth  throwing  away  peace  and  love 
for?     Are   they   worth   the   destruction   of  the 


174  Little  Foxes. 

only  fair  ideal  left  on  earth,  —  a  quiet,  hap^  , 
home?     Better  let  the  most  unjust  statements 
pass  in  silence  than  risk  one's  temper  in  a  dis- 
cussion upon  them. 

Discussions,  assuming  the  form  of  warm  ar- 
guments, are  never  pleasant  ingredients  of  do- 
mestic life,  never  safe  recreations  between 
near  friends.  They  are,  generally  speaking, 
mere  unsuspected  vents  for  self-will,  and  the 
cases  are  few  where  they  do  anything  more 
than  to  make  both  parties  more  positive  in 
their   own   way   than   they   were   before. 

A  calm  comparison  of  opposing  views,  a  fair 
statement  of  reasons  on  either  side,  may  be 
valuable ;  but  when  warmth  and  heat  and 
love  of  victory  and  pride  of  opinion  come  in, 
good  temper  and  good  manners  are  too  apt  to 
step  out. 

And  now  Christopher,  having  come  to  the 
end  of  his  subject,  pauses  for  a  sentence  to 
close  with.  There  are  a  few  lines  of  a  poet 
what    sum   up    so   beautifully   all   he    has   been 


Persistence.  175 

saying   that    he   may  be   pardoned   for   closing 
with  them. 

"  Alas !   how  light  a  cause  may  move 
Dissension  between  hearts  that  love ; 
Hearts  that  the  world  has  vainly  tried, 
And  sorrow  but  more  closely  tied ; 
That  stood  the  storm  when  waves  were  rough? 
Yet«  in  a  sunny  hour  fall  off, 
Like  ships  that  have  gone  down  at  sea 
When  heaven  was  all  tranquillity ! 
A  something  light  as  air,  a  look, 
A  word  unkind,  or  wrongly  taken, — 
O,  love  that  tempests  never  shook, 
A  breath,  a  touch  like  this  hath  shaken ! 
For  ruder  words  will  soon  rush  in 
To  spread  the  breach  that  words  begin, 
And  eyes  forget  the  gentle  ray 
They  wore  in  courtship's  smiling  day, 
And  voices  lose  the  tone  which  shed 
A  tenderness  round  all  they  said,  — 
Till,  fast  declining,  one  by  one, 
The  sweetnesses  of  love  are  gone, 
And  hearts  so  lately  mingled  seem 
Like  broken  clouds,  or  like  the  stream, 
That,  smiling,  left  the  mountain-brow 
As  though  its  waters  ne'er  could  sever, 
Yet,  ere  it  reach  the  plain  below, 
Breaks  into  floods  that  part  forever." 


V. 

INTOLERANCE. 

"  A  ND  what  are  you  going  to  preach  about 
^**  this  month,   Mr.  Crowfield?" 

"  I  am  going  to  give  a  sermon  on  Intolerance, 
Mrs.  Crowfield." 

"  Religious  intolerance  ?  " 

"  No,  —  domestic  and  family  and  educational 
intolerance,  —  one  of  the  seven  deadly  sins  on 
which  I  am  preaching,  —  one  of  '  the  foxes/ " 

People  are  apt  to  talk  as  if  all  the  intoler- 
ance in  life  were  got  up  and  expended  in  the 
religious  world ;  whereas  religious  intolerance 
is  only  a  small  branch  of  the  radical,  strong, 
all-pervading  intolerance  of  human    mature. 

Physicians  are  quite  as  intolerant  as  theolo- 
gians. They  never  have  had  the  power  of 
burning  at  the  stake  for  medical  opinions,  but 


Intolerance.  177 

they  certainly  have  shown  the  will.  Politicians 
are  intolerant.  Philosophers  are  intolerant,  es- 
pecially those  who  pique  themselves  on  liberal 
opinions.  Painters  and  sculptors  are  intolerant. 
And  housekeepers  are  intolerant,  virulently  de- 
nunciatory concerning  any  departures  from 
their  particular  domestic  creed. 

Mrs.  Alexander  Exact,  seated  at  her  domes 
tic  altar,  gives  homilies  on  the  degeneracy  of 
modern  housekeeping  equal  to  the  lamentations 
of  Dr.  Holdfast  as  to  the  falling  off  from,  the 
good  old  faith. 

"  Don't  tell  me  about  pillow-cases  made  with- 
out felling,"  says  Mrs.  Alexander  ;  "  it 's  slovenly 
and  shiftless.  I  would  n't  have  such  a  pillow- 
case in  my  house  any  more  than  I  'd  have 
vermin."  ,  *^' 

"  But,"  says  a  trembling  young  housekeeper, 
conscious  of  unfelled  pillow-cases  at  home, 
"don't  you  think,  Mrs.  Alexander,  that  some 
of  these  old  traditions  might  be  dispensed  with  ? 
It  really  is  not  necessary  to  do  all  the  work 
8*  L 


178  Little  Foxes. 

that  has  been  done  so  thoroughly  and  exactly* 
—  to  double-stitch  every  wristband,  fell  every 
seam,  count  all  the  threads  of  gathers,  and 
take  a  stitch  to  every  gather.  It  makes  beau- 
tiful sewing,  to  be  sure ;  but  when  a  woman 
has  a  family  of  little  children  and  a  small  in- 
come, if  all  her  sewing  is  to  be  kept  up  in 
this  perfect  style,  she  wears  her  life  out  in 
stitching.  Had  she  not  better  slight  a  little, 
and  get  air  and  exercise  ? " 

"  Don't  tell  me  about  air  and  exercise  !  What 
did  my  grandmother  do  ?  Why,  she  did  all  her 
own  work,  and  made  grandfather's  ruffled  shirts 
besides,  with  the  finest  stitching  and  gathers ; 
and  she  found  exercise  enough,  I  warrant  you 
Women  of  this  day  are  miserable,  sickly,  de- 
generate creatures." 

"But,  my  dear  Madam,  look  at  poor  Mrs. 
Evans,  over  the  way,  with  her  pale  face  and 
her  eight  little  ones." 

"Miserable  manager,"  said  Mrs.  Alexander 
"  If  she  'd  get  up  at  five  o'clock  the  year  round, 


Intolerance.  1 79 

as  I  do,  she'd  find  time  enough  to  do  things 
properly,  and  be  the  better  for  it." 

"But,  my  dear  Madam,  Mrs.  Evans  is  a  very 
delicately  organized,  nervous  woman." 

"  Nervous  !  Don't  tell  me  !  Every  woman 
now-a-days  is  nervous.  She  can't  get  up  in  the 
morning,  because  she  's  nervous.  She  can't  do 
her  sewing  decently,  because  she  's  nervous. 
Why,  I  might  have  been  as  nervous  as  she  is, 
if  I  'd  have  petted  and  coddled  myself  as  she 
does.  But  I  get  up  early,  take  a  walk  in  the 
fresh  air  of  a  mile  or  so  before  breakfast,  and 
come  home  feeling  the  better  for  it.  I  do  all 
my  own  sewing,  —  never  put  out  a  stitch  ;  and 
I  flatter  myself  my  things  are  made  as  they 
ought  to  be.  I  always  make  my  boys'  shirts 
and  Mr.  Exact's,  and  they  are  made  as  shirts 
ought  to  be,  —  and  yet  I  find  plenty  of  time 
for  calling,  shopping,  business,  and  company. 
It  only  requires  management  and  resolution." 

"It  is  perfectly  wonderful,  to  be  sure,  Mrs. 
Exact,  to  see  all  that  you  do ;  but  don't  you 
get  very  tired  sometimes  ? " 


f8o  Little  Foxes. 

"No,  not  often.  I  remember,  though,  the 
week  before  last  Christmas,  I  made  and  baked 
eighteen  pies  and  ten  loaves  of  cake  in  one 
day,  and  I  was  really  quite  worn  out ;  but  I 
did  n't  give  way  to  it.  I  told  Mr.  Exact  I 
thought  it  would  rest  me  to  take  a  drive  into 
New  York  and  attend  the  Sanitary  Fair ;  and 
so  we  did.  I  suppose  Mrs.  Evans  would  have 
thought  she  must  go  to  bed  and  coddle  her- 
self for  a  month." 

"  But,  dear  Mrs.  Exact,  when  a  woman  is 
kept  awake  nights  by  crying  babies — " 

"  There  's  no  need  of  having  crying  babies ; 
my  babies  never  cried ;  it 's  just  as  you  begin 
with  children.  I  might  have  had  to  be  up  and 
down  every  hour  of  the  night  with  mine,  just 
as  Mrs.  Evans  does ;  but  I  knew  better.  I  used 
to  take  'em  up  about  ten  o'clock,  and  feed  and 
make  'em  all  comfortable ;  and  that  was  the 
last  of  'em,  till  I  was  ready  to  get  up  in  the 
morning.  I  never  lost  a  night's  sleep  with  any 
of  mine" 


Intolerance.  1 8 1 

n  Not  when  they  were  teething  ?  " 

*'  No.  I  knew  how  to  manage  that.  I  used 
to  lance  their  gums  myself,  and  I  never  had 
any  trouble  :  it 's  all  in  management.  I  weaned 
'em  all  myself,  too :  there  's  no  use  in  having 
any  fuss  in  weaning  children." 

"  Mrs.  Exact,  you  are  a  wonderful  manager ; 
but  it  would  be  impossible  to  bring  up  all  ba- 
bies so." 

"  You  '11  never  make  me  believe  that :  peo- 
ple only  need  to  begin  right.  I  'm  sure  I  've 
had  a  trial  of  eight." 

"  But  there  's  that  one  baby  of  Mrs.  Evans's 
makes  more  trouble  than  all  your  eight.  It 
cries  every  night  so  that  somebody  has  to  be 
up  walking  with  it ;  it  wears  out  all  the  nurses, 
and  keeps  poor  Mrs.  Evans  sick  all  the  time." 

"  Not  the  least  need  of  it ;  nothing  but  shift- 
less management.  Suppose  I  had  allowed  my 
children  to  be  walked  with  ;  I  might  have  had 
terrible  times,  too ;  but  I  began  right.  I  set 
down   my  foot   that    they  should   lie    still,  arid 


1 82  Little  Foxes. 

they  did  ;  and  if  they  cried,  I  never  lighted  a 
candle,  or  took  'em  up,  or  took  any  kind  of 
notice  of  it ;  and  so,  after  a  little,  they  went  off 
to  sleep.  Babies  very  soon  find  out  where 
they  can  take  advantage,  and  where  they  can't. 
It 's  nothing  but  temper  makes  babies  cry ;  and 
if  I  could  n't  hush  'em  any  other  way,  I  should 
give  'em  a  few  good  smart  slaps,  and  they 
would  soon  learn  to  behave  themselves." 

"  But,  dear  Mrs.  Exact,  you  were  a  strong, 
healthy  woman,  and  had  strong,  healthy  chil- 
dren." 

"  Well,  is  n't  that  baby  of  Mrs.  Evans's  heal- 
thy, I  want  to  know  ?  I  'm  sure  it  is  a  great 
creature,  and  thrives  and  grows  fat  as  fast  as 
ever  I  saw  a  child.  You  need  n't  tell  me  any- 
thing is  the  matter  with  that  child  but  temper 
and  its  mother's  coddling  management." 

Now,  in  the  neighborhood  where  she  lives, 
Mrs.  Alexander  Exact  is  the  wonderful  woman, 
the  Lady  Bountiful,  the  pattern  female.  Her 
cake  never  rises  on  one  side,  or  has  a  heavy 


Intolerance.  183 

streak  in  it.  Her  furs  never  get  a  moth  in 
them  ;  her  carpets  never  fade ;  her  sweetmeats 
never  ferment ;  her  servants  never  neglect  their 
work ;  her  children  never  get  things  out  of 
order ;  her  babies  never  cry,  never  keep  one 
awake  o'  nights ;  and  her  husband  never  in  his 
life  said,  "  My  dear,  there  's  a  button  off  my 
shirt."  Flies  never  infest  her  kitchen,  cock- 
roaches and  red  ants  never  invade  her  prem- 
ises, a  spider  never  had  time  to  spin  a  web 
on  one  of  her  walls.  Everything  in  her  estab- 
lishment is  shining  with  neatness,  crisp  and 
bristling  with  absolute  perfection,  —  and  it  is 
she,  the  ever-up-and-dressed,  unsleeping,  wide- 
awake, omnipresent,  never-tiring  Mrs.  Exact, 
that  does  it  all. 

Besides  keeping  her  household  ways  thus 
immaculate,  Mrs.  Exact  is  on  all  sorts  of  char- 
itable committees,  does  all  sorts  of  fancy-work 
for  fairs ;  and  whatever  she  does  is  done  per- 
fectly. She  is  a  most  available,  most  helpful, 
most  benevolent  woman,  and  general  society 
has  reason  to  rejoice  in  her  existence. 


184  Little  Foxes. 

But,  for  all  this,  Mrs.  Exact  is  as  intolerant 
as  Torquemada  or  a  locomotive-engine.  She 
has  her  own  track,  straight  and  inevitable ;  her 
judgments  and  opinions  cut  through  society 
in  right  lines,  with  all  the  force  of  her  exam- 
ple and  all  the  steam  of  her  energy,  turning 
out  neither  for  the  old  nor  the  young,  the  weak 
nor  the  weary.  She  cannot,  and  she  will  not, 
conceive  the  possibility  that  there  may  be  other 
sorts  of  natures  than  her  own,  and  that  other 
kinds  of  natures  must  have  other  ways  of  liv- 
ing and  doing. 

Good  and  useful  as  she  is,  she  is  terrible  as 
an  army  with  banners  to  her  poor,  harassed, 
delicate,  struggling  neighbor  across  the  way 
who,  in  addition  to  an  aching,  confused  head, 
an  aching  back,  sleepless,  harassed  nights,  and 
weary,  sinking  days,  is  burdened  everywhere 
and  every  hour  with  the  thought  that  Mrs. 
Exact  thinks  all  her  troubles  are  nothing  but 
poor  management,  and  that  she  might  do  just 
like  her,   if  she  would.      With  very  little   self 


Intolerance.  185 

confidence  or  self-assertion,  she  is  withered  and 
paralyzed  by  this  discouraging  thought.  Is  it, 
then,  her  fault  that  this  never-sleeping  baby 
cries  all  night,  and  that  all  her  children  never 
could  and  never  would  be  brought  up  by  those 
exact  rules  which  she  hears  of  as  so  efficacious 
in  the  household  over  the  way  ?  The  thought 
of  Mrs.  Alexander  Exact  stands  over  her  like 
a  constable ;  the  remembrance  of  her  is  griev- 
ous ;  the  burden  of  her  opinion  is  heavier  than 
all  her  other  burdens. 

Now  the  fact  is,  that  Mrs.  Exact  comes  of 
a  long-lived,  strong-backed,  strong-stomached 
race,  with  "  limbs  of  British  oak  and  nerves  of 
wire."  The  shadow  of  a  sensation  of  nervous 
pain  or  uneasiness  never  has  been  known  in 
her  family  for  generations,  and  her  judgments 
of  poor  little  Mrs.  Evans  are  about  as  intelli- 
gent as  those  of  a  good  stout  Shanghai  hen 
on  a  humming-bird.  Most  useful  and  comfort- 
able, these  Shanghai  hens,  —  and  very  orna- 
mental, and  in  a  small  way  useful,  these  hum- 


1 86  Little  Foxes. 

ming-birds ;  but  let  them  not  regulate  each 
other's  diet,  or  lay  down  schemes  for  each  oth- 
er's housekeeping.  Has  not  one  as  much  right 
to  its  nature  as  the  other  ? 

This  intolerance  of  other  people's  natures  is 
one  of  the  greatest  causes  of  domestic  unhap- 
piness.  The  perfect  householders  are  they  who 
make  their  household  rule  so  flexible  that  all 
sorts  of  differing  natures  may  find  room  to 
grow  and  expand  and  express  themselves  with- 
out infringing  upon  others. 

Some  women  are  endowed  with  a  tact  for 
understanding  human  nature  and  guiding  it. 
They  give  a  sense  of  largeness  and  freedom  ; 
they  find  a  place  for  every  one,  see  at  once 
what  every  one  is  good  for,  and  are  inspired  by 
Nature  with  the  happy  wisdom  of  not  wishing 
or  asking  of  any  human  being  more  than  that 
human  being  was  made  to  give.  They  have 
the  portion  in  due  season  for  all :  a  bone  for 
the  dog ;  catnip  for  the  cat  ;  cuttle-fish  and 
hempseed  for  the   bird ;   a  book  or  review  for 


Intolerance.  187 

their  bashful  literary  visitor  ;  lively  gossip 
for  thoughtless  Miss  Seventeen  ;  knitting  fo/ 
Grandmamma  ;  fishing-rods,  boats,  and  gun- 
powder, for  Young  Restless,  whose  beard  is 
just  beginning  to  grow;  —  and  they  never  fall 
into  pets,  because  the  canary-bird  won't  relish 
the  dog's  bone,  or  the  dog  eat  canary-seed,  or 
young  Miss  Seventeen  read  old  Mr.  Sixty's 
review,  or  young  Master  Restless  take  delight 
in  knitting-work,  or  old  Grandmamma  feel 
complacency  in  guns  and  gunpowder. 

Again,  there  are  others  who  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  family  life  so  narrow,  straight,  and 
strict,  that  there  is  room  in  them  only  for 
themselves  and  people  exactly  like  themselves ; 
and  hence  comes  much  misery. 

A  man  and  woman  come  together  out  of 
different  families  and  races,  often  united  by 
only  one  or  two  sympathies,  with  many  differ- 
ences. Their  first  wisdom  would  be  to  find 
out  each  other's  nature,  and  accommodate  to 
't  as  a  fixed  fact ;  instead  of  which,  how  many 


f  88  Little  Foxes. 

spend  tl\  eir  lives  in  a  blind  fight  with  an  oppo- 
site nature,  as  good  as  their  own  in  its  way, 
but  not  capable  of  meeting  their  requirements ! 
A  woman  trained  in  an  exact,  thriving,  busi- 
ness family,  where  her  father  and  brothers  bore 
everything  along  with  true  worldly  skill  and 
energy,  falls  in  love  with  a  literary  man,  who 
knows  nothing  of  affairs,  whose  life  is  in  his 
library  and  his  pen.  Shall  she  vex  and  tor- 
ment herself  and  him  because  he  is  not  a  busi- 
ness man  ?  Shall  she  constantly  hold  up  to 
him  the  example  of  her  father  and  brothers, 
and  how  they  would  manage  in  this  and  that 
case  ?  or  shall  she  say  cheerily  and  once  for  all 
to  herself,  — "  My  husband  has  no  talent  for 
business  ;  that  is  not  his  forte  ;  but  then  he 
has  talents  far  more  interesting :  I  cannot  have 
everything  ;  let  him  go  on  undisturbed,  and  do 
what  he  can  do  well,  and  let  me  try  to  make  up 
for  what  he  cannot  do  ;  and  if  there  be  disa- 
bilities come  on  us  in  consequence  of  what  we 
neither  of  as  can  do,  let  us  both  take  them 
cheerfully  "  ? 


Intolerance.  1 89 

In  the  same  manner  a  man  takes  out  of  the 
bosom  of  an  adoring  family  one  of  those  deli- 
cate, petted  singing-birds  that  seem  to  be  cre- 
ated simply  to  adorn  life  and  make  it  charming. 
Is  it  fair,  after  he  has  got  her,  to  compare  her 
housekeeping,  and  her  efficiency  and  capability 
in  the  material  part  of  life,  with  those  of  his 
mother  and  sisters,  who  are  strong-limbed,  prac- 
tical women,  that  have  never  thought  about 
anything  but  housekeeping  from  their  cradle  ? 
Shall  he  all  the  while  vex  himself  and  her  with 
the  remembrance  of  how  his  mother  used  to 
get  up  at  five  o'clock  and  arrange  all  the  busi- 
ness of  the  day,  —  how  she  kept  all  the  ac- 
counts, —  how  she  saw  to  everything  and  set- 
tled everything,  —  how  there  never  were  break- 
downs or  irregularities  in  her  system  ? 

This  would  be  unfair.  If  a  man  wanted  such 
a  housekeeper,  why  did  he  not  get  one  ?  There 
were  plenty  of  single  women,  who  understood 
washing,  ironing,  clear-starching,  cooking,  and 
general  housekeeping,  better  than  the  little  ca 


190  Little  Foxes. 

nary-bird  which  he  fell  in  love  with,  and  wanted 
for  her  plumage  and  her  song,  for  her  merry 
tricks,  for  her  bright  eyes  and  pretty  ways. 
Now  he  has  got  his  bird,  let  him  keep  it  as 
something  fine  and  precious,  to  be  cared  for 
and  watched  over,  and  treated  according  to  the 
laws  of  its  frail  and  delicate  nature  ;  and  so 
treating  it,  he  may  many  years  keep  the  charms 
which  first  won  his  heart.  He  may  find,  too, 
if  he  watches  and  is  careful,  that  a  humming- 
bird can,  in  its  own  small,  dainty  way,  build  a 
nest  as  efficiently  as  a  turkey-gobbler,  and 
hatch  her  eggs  and  bring  up  her  young  in 
humming-bird  fashion  ;  but  to  do  it,  she  must 
be  left  unfrightened   and  undisturbed. 

But  the  evils  of  domestic  intolerance  increase 
with  the  birth  of  children.  As  parents  come 
together  out  -  of  different  families  with  ill-as- 
sorted peculiarities,  so  children  are  born  to 
them  with  natures  differing  from  their  own  and 
from  each  other. 

The  parents  seize  on  their  first  new  child  a? 


Intolerance.  191 

a  piece  of  special  property  which  they  are 
forthwith  to  turn  to  their  own  account  The 
poor  little  waif,  just  drifted  on  the  shores  of 
Time,  has  perhaps  folded  up  in  it  a  character 
as  positive  as  that  of  either  parent ;  but,  for  all 
that,  its  future  course  is  marked  out  for  it,  all 
arranged  and   predetermined. 

John  has  a  perfect  mania  for  literary  distinc- 
tion. His  own  education  was  somewhat  imper- 
fect, but  he  is  determined  his  children  shall  be 
prodigies.  His  first-born  turns  out  a  girl,  who 
is  to  write  like  Madame  de  Stael,  —  to  be  an 
able,  accomplished  woman.  He  bores  her  with 
literature  from  her  earliest  years,  reads  extracts 
from  Milton  to  her  when  she  is  only  eight 
years  old,  and  is  secretly  longing  to  be  playing 
with  her  doll's  wardrobe.  He  multiplies  gov- 
ernesses, spares  no  expense,  and  when,  after 
all,  his  daughter  turns  out  to  be  only  a  very 
pretty,  sensible,  domestic  girl,  fond  of  cross- 
stitching  embroidery,  and  with  a  more  decided 
vocation  for  sponge-cake  and   pickles   than   for 


192  Little  Foxes. 

poetry  and  composition,  he  is  disappointed  and 
treats  her  coldly ;  and  she  is  unhappy  and 
feels  that  she  has  vexed  her  parents,  because 
she  cannot  be  what  Nature  never  meant  her  to 
be.  If  John  had  taken  meekly  the  present 
that  Mother  Nature  gave  him,  and  humbly  set 
himself  to  inquire  what  it  was  and  what  it  was 
good  for,  he  might  have  had  years  of  happiness 
with  a  modest,  amiable,  and  domestic  daughter, 
to  whom  had  been  given  the  instinct  to  study 
household  good. 

But,  again,  a  bustling,  pickling,  preserving, 
stocking-knitting,  universal-housekeeping  wo- 
man has  a  daughter  who  dreams  over  her  knit- 
ting-work and  hides  a  book  under  her  sampler, 
—  whose  thoughts  are  straying  in  Greece,  Rome, 
Germany,  —  who  is  reading,  studying,  thinking, 
writing,  without  knowing  why  ;  and  the  mother 
sets  herself  to  fight  this  nature,  and  to  make 
the  dreamy  scholar  into  a  driving,  thorough- 
going, exact  woman-of-business.  How  many 
tears  are  shed,  how  much  temper  wasted,  how 
much  time  lost,  in  such  encounters  I 


Intolerance.  1 93 

Each  of  these  natures,  under  judicious  train- 
ing, might  be  made  to  complete  itself  by  cul- 
tivation of  that  which  it  lacked.  The  born 
housekeeper  can  never  be  made  a  genius,  but 
she  may  add  to  her  household  virtues  some  rea- 
sonable share  of  literary  culture  and  apprecia- 
tion, —  and  the  born  scholar  may  learn  to 
come  down  out  of  her  clouds,  and  see  enough 
of  this  earth  to  walk  its  practical  ways  without 
stumbling  ;  but  this  must  be  done  by  tolerance 
of  their  nature,  —  by  giving  it  play  and  room, 
—  first  recognizing  its  existence  and  its  rights, 
and  then  seeking  to  add  to  it  the  properties 
it  wants. 

A  clever  Yankee  housekeeper,  fruitful  of  re- 
sources, can  work  with  any  tools  or  with  no 
tools  at  all.  If  she  absolutely  cannot  get  a 
tack-hammer  with  a  claw  on  one  end,  she  can 
take  up  carpet-nails  with  an  iron  spoon,  and 
drive  them  down  with  a  flat-iron  ;  and  she  has 
sense  enough  not  to  scold,  though  she  does  her 
work  with  them   at  considerable  disadvantage, 


194  Little  Foxes. 

She  knows  that  she  is  working  with  tools  madt. 
for  another  purpose,  and  never  thinks  of  being 
angry  at  their  unhandiness.  She  might  have 
equal  patience  with  a  daughter  unhandy  in 
physical  things,  but  acute  and  skilful  in  mental 
ones,  if  she  once  had  the  idea  suggested  to 
her. 

An  ambitious  man  has  a  son  whom  he  des- 
tines to  a  learned  profession.  He  is  to  be  the 
Daniel  Webster  of  the  family.  The  boy  has 
a  robust,  muscular  frame,  great  physical  vigor 
and  enterprise,  a  brain  bright  and  active  in  all 
that  may  be  acquired  through  the  bodily  senses, 
but  which  is  dull  and  confused  and  wandering 
when  put  to  abstract  book-knowledge.  He 
knows  every  ship  at  the  wharf,  her  build,  ton- 
nage, and  sailing  qualities ;  he  knows  every 
railroad-engine,  its  power,  speed,  and  hours  of 
coming  and  going ;  he  is  always  busy,  sawing, 
hammering,  planing,  digging,  driving,  making 
bargains,  with  his  head  full  of  plans,  all  relat- 
ing to  something  outward  and  physical.     In  al1 


Intolerance,  195 

tnese  matters  his  mind  works  strongly,  his 
ideas  are  clear,  his  observation  acute,  his  con- 
versation sensible  and  worth  listening  to.  But 
as  to  the  distinction  between  common  nouns 
and  proper  nouns,  between  the  subject  and  the 
predicate  of  a  sentence,  between  the  relative 
pronoun  and  the  demonstrative  adjective  pro- 
noun, between  the  perfect  and  the  preter-per- 
fect  tense,  he  is  extremely  dull  and  hazy.  The 
region  of  abstract  ideas  is  to  him  a  region  oi 
ghosts  and  shadows.  Yet  his  youth  is  mainly 
a  dreary  wilderness  of  uncomprehended,  in- 
comprehensible studies,  of  privations,  tasks, 
punishments,  with  a  sense  of  continual  failure, 
disappointment,  and  disgrace,  because  his  father 
is  trying  to  make  *  scholar  and  a  literary  man 
out  of  a  boy  whom  Nature  made  to  till  the 
soil  or  manage  the  material  forces  of  the  world. 
He  might  be  a  farmer,  an  engineer,  a  pioneer 
rf  a  new  settlement,  a  sailor,  a  soldier,  a  thriv- 
ng  man  of  business ;  but  he  grows  up  feeling 
har  his  nature  is  a  crime,  and  that  he  is  good 


ig6  Little  Foxes. 

for  nothing,  because  he  is  not  good  for  what 
he  had  been  blindly  predestined  fo  before  he 
was  born. 

Anothei  boy  is  a  born  mechanic ;  he  under- 
stands machinery  at  a  glance ;  he  is  all  the 
while  pondering  and  studying  and  experiment- 
ing. But  his  wheels  and  his  axles  and  his 
pulleys  are  all  swept  away,  as  so  much  irrele- 
vant lumber ;  he  is  doomed  to  go  into  the  Latin 
School,  and  spend  three  or  four  years  in  try- 
ing to  learn  what  he  never  can  learn  well, — 
disheartened  by  always  being  at  the  tail  of 
his  class,  and  seeing  many  a  boy  inferior  to 
himself  in  general  culture  who  is  rising  to  bril- 
liant distinction  simply  because  he  can  remem- 
ber those  hopeless,  bewildering  Greek  quanti- 
ties and  accents  which  he  is  constantly  forget- 
ting,—  as,  for  example,  how  properispomena 
become  paroxytones  when  the  ultimate  becomes 
long,  and  proparoxytones  become  paroxytones 
when  the  ultimate  becomes  long,  while  paroxy- 
tones with  a  short  penult   remain  paroxytones, 


Intolerance.  197 

Each  of  this  class  of  rules,  however,  having 
about  sixteen  exceptions,  which  hold  good  ex- 
?ept  in  three  or  four  other  exceptional  cases 
under  them,  the  labyrinth  becomes  delightfully 
wilder  and  wilder ;  and  the  crowning  beauty 
of  the  whole  is,  that,  when  the  bewildered  boy 
has  swallowed  the  whole,  —  tail,  scales,  fins, 
and  bones,  —  he  then  is  allowed  to  read  the 
classics  in  peace,  without  the  slightest  occa- 
sion to  refer  to  them  again  during  his  college 
course. 

The  great  trouble  with  the  so-called  classi- 
cal course  of  education  is,  that  it  is  made 
strictly  for  but  one  class  of  minds,  which  it 
drills  in  respects  for  which  they  have  by  na- 
ture an  aptitude,  and  to  which  it  presents 
scarcely  enough  of  difficulty  to  make  it  a  men- 
tal discipline,  while  to  another  and  equally  valu- 
able class  of  minds  it  presents  difficulties  so 
great  as  actually  to  crush  and  discourage. 
There  are,  we  will  venture  to  say,  in  every 
ten   boys   in    Boston,   four,    and  those  not   the 


198  Little  Foxes. 

dullest  or  poorest  in  quality,  who  could  never 
go  through  the  discipline  of  the  Boston  Latin 
School  without  such  a  strain  on  the  brain  and 
nervous  system  as  would  leave  them  no  power 
for  anything  else. 

A  bright,  intelligent  boy,  whose  talents  lay 
in  the  line  of  natural  philosophy  and  mechan- 
ics, passed  with  brilliant  success  through  the 
Boston  English  High  School.  He  won  the 
first  medals,  and  felt  all .  that  pride  and  enthu- 
siasm which  belong  to  a  successful  student. 
He  entered  the  Latin  Classical  School  as  the 
next  step  on  his  way  to  a  collegiate  education. 
With  a  large  philosophic  and  reasoning  brain, 
he  had  a  very  poor  verbal  and  textual  memory ; 
and  here  he  began  to  see  himself  distanced 
by  boys  who  had  hitherto  looked  up  to  him. 
They  could  rattle  off  catalogues  of  names ; 
they  could  do  so  all  the  better  from  the  habit 
of  not  thinking  of  what  they  studied.  They 
could  commit  the  Latin  Grammar,  coarse  print 
%nd   fire,    and    run    through   the   interminable 


Intolerance.  199 

mazes  of  Greek  accents  and  Greek  inflections. 
This  boy  of  large  mind  and  brain  found  him- 
self always  behindhand,  and  became,  in  time, 
utterly  discouraged  ;  no  amount  of  study  could 
place  him  on  an  equality  with  his  former  infe- 
riors. His  health  failed,  and  he  dropped  from 
school.  Many  a  fine  fellow  has  been  lost  to 
himself,  and  lost  to  an  educated  life,  by  just 
such  a  failure.  The  collegiate  system  is  like 
a  great  coal-screen :  every  piece  not  of  a  cer- 
tain size  must  fall  through.  This  may  do  well 
enough  for  screening  coal ;  but  what  if  it  were 
used  indiscriminately  for  a  mixture  of  coal  and 
diamonds  ? 

"  Poor  boy  !  "  said  Ole  Bull,  compassionately, 
when  one  sought  to  push  a  schoolboy  from 
the  steps  of  an  omnibus,  where  he  was  getting 
a  surreptitious  ride.  "  Poor  boy !  let  him  stay. 
Who  knows  his  trials  ?  Perhaps  he  studies 
Latin." 

The  witty  Heinrich  Heine  says,  in  bitter 
remembrance    of    his    early   sufferings,  —  "The 


200  Little  Foxes. 

Romans  would  never  have  conquered  the  world, 
if  they  had  had  to  learn  their  own  language. 
They  had  leisure,  because  they  were  born  with 
the  knowledge  of  what  nouns  form  their  accu- 
satives  in  im." 

Now  we  are  not  among  those  who  decry  the 
Greek  and  Latin  classics.  We  think  it  a  glo- 
rious privilege  to  read  both  those  grand  old 
tongues,  and  that  an  intelligent,  cultivated 
man  who  is  shut  out  from  the  converse  of  the 
splendid  minds  of  those  olden  times  loses  a 
part  of  his  birthright ;  and  therefore  it  is  that 
we  mourn  that  but  one  dry,  hard,  technical 
path,  one  sharp,  straight,  narrow  way,  is  al- 
lowed into  so  goodly  a  land  of  knowledge. 
We  think  there  is  no  need  that  the  study  of 
Greek  and  Latin  should  be  made  such  a  hor- 
ror. There  is  many  a  man  without  a  verbal 
memory,  who  could  neither  recite  in  order  the 
paradigms  of  the  Greek  verbs,  nor  repeat  the 
lists  of  nouns  that  form  their  accusative  in 
one  termination   or  another,  who,  nevertheless, 


Intolerance.  201 

Dy  the  exercise  of  his  faculties  of  comparison 
and  reasoning,  could  learn  to  read  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics  so  as  to  take  their  sense 
and  enjoy  their  spirit ;  and  that  is  all  that  ia 
worth  caring  for.  We  have  known  one  young 
scholar,  who  could  not  by  any  possibility  re- 
peat the  lists  of  exceptions  to  the  rules  in  the 
Latin  Grammar,  who  yet  delightedly  filled  his 
private  note-book  with  quotations  from  the 
"^Eneid,"  and  was  making  extracts  of  literary 
gems  from  his  Greek  Reader,  at  the  same  time 
that  he  was  every  day  "screwed"  by  his  tutoi 
upon  some  technical  point  of  the  language. 

Is  there  not  many  a  master  of  English,  many 
a  writer  and  orator,  who  could  not  repeat  from 
memory  the  list  of  nouns  ending  in  y  that 
form  their  plural  in  ies,  with  the  exceptions 
under  it  ?  How  many  of  us  could  do  this  ? 
Would  it  help  a  good  writer  and  fluent  speaker 
to  know  the  whole  of  Murray's  Grammar  by 
heart,  or  does  real  knowledge  of  a  language 
ever  come  in  this  way  ? 


202  Little  Foxes. 

At  present  the  rich  stores  of  ancient  litera- 
ture are  kept  like  the  savory  stew  which  poor 
Dominie  Sampson  heard  simmering  in  the 
witch's  kettle.  One  may  have  much  appetite, 
but  there  is  but  one  way  of  getting  it.  The 
Meg  Merrilies  of  our  educational  system,  with 
her  harsh  voice,  and  her  "  Gape,  sinner,  and 
swallow,"  is  the  only  introduction,  —  and  so, 
many  a  one  turns  and  runs  frightened  from 
the  feast. 

This  intolerant  mode  of  teaching  the  classi- 
cal languages  is  peculiar  to  them  alone.  Mul- 
titudes of  girls  and  boys  are  learning  to  read 
and  to  speak  German,  French,  and  Italian,  and 
to  feel  all  the  delights  of  expatiating  in  the  lit- 
erature of  a  new  language,  purely  because  of  a 
simpler,  more  natural,  less  pedantic  mode  of 
teaching  these  languages. 

Intolerance  in  the  established  system  of  edu- 
cation works  misery  in  families,  because  family 
pride  decrees  that  every  boy  of  good  status  in 
society,  will  he,  nill  he,  shall  go  through  col* 


Intolerance.  203 

lege,  or  he  almost  forfeits  his  position  as  a 
gentleman, 

"Not  go  to  Cambridge!"  says  Scholasticus 
to  his  first-born.  "  Why,  I  went  there,  —  and 
my  father,  and  his  father,  and  his  father  before 
him.  Look  at  the  Cambridge  Catalogue  and 
you  will  see  the  names  of  our  family  ever  since 
the  College  was  founded  ! " 

"But  I  can't  learn  Latin  and  Greek,"  says 
young  Scholasticus.  "  I  can't  remember  all 
those  rules  and  exceptions.  I  Ve  tried,  and  I 
can't.  If  you  could  only  know  how  my  head 
feels  when  I  try  !  And  I  won't  be  at  the  foot 
of  the  class  all  the  time,  if  I  have  to  get  my 
living  by  digging." 

Suppose,  now,  the  boy  is  pushed  on  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet  to  a  kind  of  knowledge 
in  which  he  has  no  interest,  communicated  in 
a  way  that  requires  faculties  which  Nature  has 
not  given  him,  —  what  occurs  ? 

He  goes  through  his  course,  either  shamming, 
shirki?ig,  ponyifig,  all  the  while  consciously  dis« 


204  Little  Foxes. 

credited  and  dishonored,  —  or  else,  putting  forth 
an  effort  that  is  a  draft  on  all  his  nervous 
energy,  he  makes  merely  a  decent  scholar, 
and  loses  his  health  for  life. 

Now,  if  the  principle  of  toleration  were  once 
admitted  into  classical  education,  —  if  it  were 
admitted  that  the  great  object  is  to  read  and 
enjoy  a  language,  and  the  stress  of  the  teach- 
ing were  placed  on  the  few  things  absolutely 
essential  to  this  result,  —  if  the  tortoise  were 
allowed  time  to  creep,  and  the  bird  permitted 
to  fly,  and  the  fish  to  swim,  towards  the  en- 
chanted and  divine  sources  of  Helicon,  —  all 
might  in  their  own  way  arrive  there,  and  re- 
joice in  its  flowers,  its  beauty,  and  its  cool- 
ness. 

"  But,"  say  the  advocates  of  the  present  sys- 
tem, "  it  is  good  mental  discipline." 

I  doubt  it.     It  is  mere  waste  of  time. 

When  a  boy  has  learned  that  in  the  genitive 
plural  of  the  first  declension  of  Greek  nouns  the 
final  syllable  is  circumflexed,  but  to  this  there 


Intolerance.  205 

are  the  following  exceptions  :  1.  That  feminine 
adjectives  and  participles  in  -09,  -rjy  -ov  are  ac- 
cented like  the  genitive  masculine,  but  other 
feminine  adjectives  and  participles  are  peris- 
pomena  in  the  genitive  plural  ;  2.  That  the 
substantives  ckrestes,  aphue,  etesiai,  and  chlounes 
in  the  genitive  plural  remain  paroxytones, 
(Kiihner's  Elementary  Greek  Grammar,  page  22,) 
—  I  say,  when  a  boy  has  learned  this  and 
twenty  other  things  just  like  it,  his  mind  has 
not  been  one  whit  more  disciplined  than  if  he 
had  learned  the  list  of  the  old  thirteen  States, 
the  number  and  names  of  the  newly  adopted 
ones,  the  times  of  their  adoption,  and  the  pop- 
ulation, commerce,  mineral  and  agricultural 
wealth  of  each.  These,  too,  are  merely  exer- 
cises of  memory,  but  they  are  exercises  in  what 
is  of  some  interest  and  some  use. 

The  particulars  above  cited  are  of  so  little 
use  in  understanding  the  Greek  classics'  that  I 
will  venture  to  say  that  there  are  intelligent 
English    scholars,    who    have   never    read    any^ 


206  Little  Foxes. 

thing  but  Bohn's  translations,  who  have  more 
genuine  knowledge  of  the  spirit  of  the  Greek 
mind,  and  the  peculiar  idioms  of  the  language, 
and  more  enthusiasm  for  it,  than  many  a  poor 
fellow  who  has  stumbled  blindly  through  the 
originals  with  the  bayonet  of  the  tutor  at  his 
heels,  and  his  eyes  and  ears  full  of  the  Scotch 
snuff  of  the  Greek  Grammar. 

What  then  ?  Shall  we  not  learn  these  an- 
cient tongues  ?  By  all  means.  "  So  many 
times  as  I  learn  a  language,  so  many  times  I 
become  a  man,"  said  Charles  V. ;  and  he  said 
rightly.  Latin  and  Greek  are  foully  belied  by 
the  prejudices  created  by  this  technical,  pedan- 
tic mode  of  teaching  them,  which  makes  one 
ragged,  prickly  bundle  of  all  the  dry  facts  of  the 
language,  and  insists  upon  it  that  the  boy  shall 
not  see  one  glimpse  of  its  beauty,  glory,  or  in- 
terest, till  he  has  swallowed  and  digested  the 
whole  mass.  Many  die  in  this  wilderness  with 
their  shoes  worn  out  before  reaching  the  Prom- 
ised Land  of  Plato  and  the  Tragedians. 


Intolerance.  207 

"  But,"  say  our  college  authorities,  "  look  at 
England.  An  English  schoolboy  learns  three 
times  the  Latin  and  Greek  that  our  boys  learn, 
and  has  them  well  drubbed  in." 

And  English  boys  have  three  times  more 
beef  and  pudding  in  their  constitution  than 
American  boys  have,  and  three  times  less  of 
nerves.  The  difference  of  nature  must  be  con- 
sidered here  ;  and  the  constant  influence  flow- 
ing from  English  schools  and  universities  must 
be  tempered  by  considering  who  we  are,  what 
sort  of  boys  we  have  to  deal  with,  what  treat- 
ment they  can  bear,  and  what  are  the  needs  of 
our  growing  American  society. 

The  demands  of  actual  life,  the  living,  visible 
facts  of  practical  science,  in  so  large  and  new 
a  country  as  ours,  require  that  the  ideas  of  the 
ancients  should  be  given  us  in  the  shortest 
and  most  economical  way  possible,  and  that 
scholastic  technicalities  should  be  reserved  to 
those  whom  Nature  made  with  especial  refer- 
ence to  their   preservation. 

• 


208  Little  Foxes. 

On  no  subject  is  there  more  intolerant  judg- 
ment, and  more  suffering  from  such  intoler- 
ance, than  on  the  much  mooted  one  of  the 
education  of  children. 

Treatises  on  education  require  altogether  too 
much  of  parents,  and  impose  burdens  of  respon- 
sibility on  tender  spirits  which  crush  the  life 
and  strength  out  of  them.  Parents  have  been 
talked  to  as  if  each  child  came  to  them  a  soft, 
pulpy  mass,  which  they  were  to  pinch  and  pull 
and  pat  and  stroke  into  shape  quite  at  their 
leisure,  —  and  a  good  pattern  being  placed  be- 
fore them,  they  were  to  proceed  immediately 
to  set  up  and  construct  a  good  human  being 
in  conformity  therewith. 

It  is  strange  that  believers  in  the  divine  in- 
spiration of  the  Bible  should  have  entertained 
this  idea,  overlooking  the  constant  and  affect- 
ing declaration  of  the  great  Heavenly  Father 
that  He  has  nourished  and  brought  up  children 
and  they  have  rebelled  against  Him,  togethei 
with    His    constant    appeals,  —  "  What    could 


Intolerance.  209 

have  been  done  more  to  my  vineyard  that  I 
have  not  done  in  it  ?  Wherefore,  when  I 
looked  that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes, 
brought  it  forth  wild  grapes  ? "  If  even  God, 
wiser,  better,  purer,  more  loving,  admits  Him- 
self baffled  in  this  great  work,  is  it  expedient 
to  say  to  human  beings  that  the  forming  power, 
the  deciding  force,  of  a  child's  character  is  in 
their   hands  ? 

Many  a  poor  feeble  woman's  health  has  been 
strained  to  breaking,  and  her  life  darkened,  by 
the  laying  ->n  her  shoulders  of  a  burden  of  re- 
sponsibility that  never  ought  to  have  been 
placed  there  ;  and  many  a  mother  has  been 
hindered  from  using  such  powers  as  God  has 
given  her,  because  some  preconceived  mode 
of  operation  has  been  set  up  before  her  which 
she  could  no  more  make  effectual  than  David 
could  wear  the  armor  of  Saul. 

A  gentle,  loving,  fragile  creature  marries  a 
otrong-willed,  energetic  man,  and  by  tHe  laws 
of  natural  descent  has  a  boy  given  to  her  of 


210  Little  Foxes. 

twice  her  amount  of  will  and  energy.  She  is 
just  as  helpless,  in  the  mere  struggle  of  will 
and  authority  with  such  a  child,  as  she  would 
be  in  a  physical  wrestle  with  a  six-foot  man. 

What  then  ?  Has  Nature  left  her  help- 
less for  her  duties  ?  Not  if  she  understands 
her  nature,  and  acts  in  the  line  of  it.  She  has 
no  power  of  command,  but  she  has  power  of 
persuasion.  She  can  neither  bend  nor  break 
the  boy's  iron  will,  but  she  can  melt  it.  She 
has  tact  to  avoid  the  conflict  in  which  she 
would  be  worsted.  She  can  charm,  amuse, 
please,  and  make  willing  ;  and  her  fine  and 
subtile  influences,  weaving  themselves  about 
him  day  after  day,  become  more  and  more 
powerful.  Let  her  alone,  and  she  will  have 
her  boy  yet. 

But  now  some  bustling  mother-in-law  or  other 
privileged  expounder  says  to  her,  — 

"  My  dear,  it 's  your  solemn  duty  to  break 
that  boy's  will.  I  broke  my  boy's  will  short 
off.     Keep   your   whip  in   sight,   meet   him   at 


Intolerance.  2  i  I 

every  turn,  fight  him  whenevei  he  crosses  you, 
never  let  him  get  one  victory,  and  finally  his 
will  will  be  wholly  subdued." 

Such  advice  is  mischievous,  because  what  it 
proposes  is  as  utter  an  impossibility  to  the  wo- 
man's nature  as  for  a  cow  to  scratch  up  worms 
for  her  calf,  or  a  hen  to  suckle  her  chickens. 

There  are  men  and  women  of  strong,  reso- 
lute will  who  are  gifted  with  the  power  of  gov- 
erning the  wills  of  others.  Such  persons  can 
govern  in  this  way,  —  and  their  government, 
being  in  the  line  of  their  nature,  acting 
strongly,  consistently,  naturally,  makes  every- 
thing move  harmoniously.  Let  them  be  con- 
tent with  their  own  success,  but  let  them  not 
set  up  as  general  education-doctors,  or  apply 
their  experience  to  all  possible  cases. 

Again,  there  are  others,  and  among  them 
some  of  the  loveliest  and  purest  natures,  who 
have  no  power  of  command.  They  have  suffi- 
cient tenacity  of  will  as  respects  their  own 
course,  but  have  no  compulsory  power  o*rer  the 


212  Little  Foxes. 

wills  of  others.  Many  such  women  have  been 
most  successful  mothers,  when  they  followed 
the  line  of  their  own  natures,  and  did  not  un- 
dertake what  they  never  could  do. 

Infltience  is  a  slower  acting  force  than  au- 
thority. It  seems  weaker,  but  in  the  long  run 
it  often  effects  more.  It  always  does  better 
than  mere  force  and  authority  without  its  gen- 
tle modifying  power. 

She  who  obtains  an  absolute  and  perfect 
government  over  a  child,  so  that  he  obeys,  cer- 
tainly and  almost  mechanically  produces  effects 
which  are  more  appreciable  in  their  immediate 
action  on  family  life ;  her  family  will  be  more 
orderly,  her  children  in  their  childhood  will  do 
her  more  credit. 

But  she  who  has  consciously  no  power  of 
this  kind,  whose  children  are  often  turbulent 
and  unmanageable,  need  not  despair  if  she 
feel  that  through  affection,  reason,  and  con- 
science, she  still  retains  a  strong  influence  over 
them.     If  she  cannot  govern  her  boy,  she  can 


Intolerance.  213 

do  even  a  better  thing  if  she  can  inspire  him 
with  a  purpose  to  govern  himself ;  for  a  boy 
taught  to  govern  himself  is  a  better  achieve- 
ment than  a  boy  merely  governed. 

If  a  mother,  therefore,  is  high-principled,  re- 
ligious, affectionate,  if  she  never  uses  craft  or 
deception,  if  she  governs  her  temper  and  sets 
a  good  example,  let  her  hold  on  in  good  hope, 
though  she  cannot  produce  the  discipline  of  a 
man-of-war  in  her  noisy  little  flock,  or  make 
all  move  as  smoothly  as  some  other  women  to 
whom  God  has  given  another  and  different  tal- 
ent ;  and  let  her  not  be  discouraged,  if  she 
seem  often  to  accomplish  but  little  in  that 
arduous  work  of  forming  human  character 
wherein  the  great  Creator  of  the  world  has 
declared  Himself  at  times  baffled. 

Family  tolerance  must  take  great  account  of 
the  stages  and  periods  of  development  and 
growth  in  children. 

The  passage  of  a  human  being  from  one  stage 
of  development  to  another,  like  the  sun's  pas- 


214  L  ittle  Foxes. 

sage  across  the  equator,  frequently  has  its 
storms  and  tempests.  The  change  to  man- 
hood and  womanhood  often  involves  brain, 
nerves,  body,  and  soul  in  confusion ;  the  child 
sometimes  seems  lost  to  himself  and  his  par- 
ents,—  his  very  nature  changing.  In  this  sen- 
sitive state  come  restless  desires,  unreasonable 
longings,  unsettled  purposes ;  and  the  fatal 
habit  of  indulgence  in  deadly  stimulants,  ruin- 
ing all  the  life,  often  springs  from  the  cravings 
of  this  transition  period. 

Here  must  come  in  the  patience  of  the  saints. 
The  restlessness  must  be  soothed,  the  family 
hearth  must  be  tolerant  enough  to  keep  there 
the  boy,  whom  Satan  will  receive  and  cherish, 
if  his  mother  does  not.  The  male  element 
sometimes  pours  into  a  boy,  like  the  tides  in 
the  Bay  of  Fundy,  with  tumult  and  tossing. 
He  is  noisy,  vociferous,  uproarious,  and  seems 
bent  only  on  disturbance ;  he  despises  conven- 
tionalities, he  hates  parlors,  he  longs  for  the 
woods,   the   sea,   the   converse    of   rough   men, 


Intolerance.  215 

and  kicks  at  constraint  of  all  kinds.  Have 
patience  now,  let  love  have  its  perfect  work, 
and  in  a  year  or  two,  if  no  deadly  physical 
habits  set  in,  a  quiet,  well-mannered  gentle- 
man will  be  evolved.  Meanwhile,  if  he  does 
not  wipe  his  shoes,  and  if  he  will  fling  his  hat 
upon  the  floor,  and  tear  his  clothes,  and  bang 
and  hammer  and  shout,  and  cause  general  con- 
fusion in  his  belongings,  do  not  despair ;  for 
if  you  only  get  your  son,  the  hat  and  clothes 
and  shoes  and  noise  and  confusion  do  not  mat- 
ter. Any  amount  of  toleration  that  keeps  a 
boy  contented  at  home  is  treasure  well  ex- 
pended at  this  time  of  life. 

One  thing  not  enough  reflected  on  is,  that 
in  this  transition  period  between  childhood  and 
maturity  the  heaviest  draft  and  strain  of  school 
education  occurs.  The  boy  is  fitting  for  the 
university,  the  girl  going  through  the  studies 
of  the  college  senior  year,  and  the  brain-power, 
which  is  working  almost  to  the  breaking-point 
to  perfect  the  physical   change,   has  the  addi 


2 1 6  L  it  tie  Foxes. 

tional   labor   of  all   the  drill  and  discipline  of 
school. 

The  girl  is  growing  into  a  tall  and  shapely 
woman,  and  the  poor  brain  is  put  to  it  to  find 
enough  phosphate  of  lime,  carbon,  and  other 
what  not,  to  build  her  fair  edifice.  The  bills 
flow  in  upon  her  thick  and  fast ;  she  pays  out 
hand  over  hand :  if  she  had  only  her  woman 
to  build,  she  might  get  along,  but  now  come  in 
demands  for  algebra,  geometry,  music,  language, 
and  the  poor  brain-bank  stops  payment ;  some 
part  of  the  work  is  shabbily  done,  and  a  crooked 
spine  or  weakened  lungs  are  the  result. 

Boarding-schools,  both  for  boys  and  girls, 
are  for  the  most  part  composed  of  young  peo- 
ple in  this  most  delicate,  critical  portion  of 
their  physical,  mental,  and  moral  development, 
whose  teachers  are  expected  to  put  them 
through  one  straight,  severe  course  of  drill, 
without  the  slightest  allowance  for  the  great 
physical  facts  of  their  being.  No  wonder  they 
are  difficult  to  manage,  and  that  so  many  of 


Intolerance.  2 1 7 

them  drop,  physically,  mentally,  and  morally 
halt  and  maimed.  It  is  not  the  teacher's  fault ; 
he  but  fulfils  the  paieiit's  requisition,  which 
dooms  his  child  without  appeal  to  a  certain 
course,  simply  because  others  have  gone  through 
it. 

Finally,  as  my  sermon  is  too  long  already, 
let  me  end  with  a  single  reflection.  Every 
human  being  has  some  handle  by  which  he 
may  be  lifted,  some  groove  in  which  he  was 
meant  to  run ;  and  the  great  work  of  life,  as 
far  as  our  relations  with  each  other  are  con- 
cerned, is  to  lift  each  one  by  his  own  proper 
handle,  and  run  each  one  in  his  own  proper 
groove. 


VI- 

DISCOURTESY. 

"XT OR  my  part,"  said  my  wife,  "I  think  oni 
of  the  greatest  destroyers  of  domestic 
peace  is  Discourtesy.  People  neglect,  with 
their  nearest  friends,  those  refinements  and 
civilities  which  they  practise  with  strangers." 

"  My  dear  Madam,  I  am  of  another  opinion," 
said  Bob  Stephens.  "  The  restraints  of  eti- 
quette, the  formalities  of  ceremony,  are  tedious 
enough  in  out-door  life ;  but  when  a  man 
comes  home,  he  wants  leave  to  take  off  his 
tight  boots  and  gloves,  wear  the  gown  and 
slippers,  and  speak  his  mind  freely  without 
troubling  his  head  where  it  hits.  Home-life 
should  be  the  communion  of  people  who  have 
learned  to  understand  each  other,  who  allow 
each  other  a  generous  latitude  and  freedom. 
One  wants   one   place   where   he   may   feel   at 


Discourtesy.  219 

liberty  to  be  tired  or  dull  or  disagreeable  with- 
out ruining  his  character.  Home  is  the  place 
where  we  should  expect  to  live  somewhat  on 
the  credit  which  a  full  knowledge  of  each  oth- 
er's goodness  and  worth  inspires  ;  and  it  is 
not  necessary  for  intimate  friends  to  go  every 
day  through  those  civilities  and  attentions  which 
they  practise  with  strangers,  any  more  than  it 
is  necessary,  among  literary  people,  to  repeat 
the  alphabet  over  every  day  before  one  begins 
to  read." 

"  Yes,"  said  Jennie,  "  when  a  young  gentle- 
man is  paying  his  addresses,  he  helps  a  young 
lady  out  of  a  carriage  so  tenderly,  and  holds 
back  her  dress  so  adroitly,  that  not  a  particle 
of  mud  gets  on  it  from  the  wheels  ;  but  when 
the  mutual  understanding  is  complete,  and  the 
affection  perfect,  and  she  is  his  wife,  he  sits 
still  and  holds  the  horse  and  lets  her  climb 
out  alone.  To  be  sure,  when  pretty  Miss  Tit- 
mouse is  visiting  them,  he  still  shows  himself 
gallant,  flies  from  the  carriage,  and  holds  back 


220  Little  Foxes. 

her  dress  :  that 's  because  he  does  n't  love  her 
nor  she  him,  and  they  are  not  on  the  ground 
of  mutual  affection.  When  a  gentleman  is 
only  engaged,  or  a  friend,  if  you  hem  him  a 
cravat  or  mend  his  gloves,  he  thanks  you  in 
the  blandest  manner  ;  but  when  you  are  once 
sure  of  his  affection,  he  only  says,  '  Very  well  ; 
now  I  wish  you  would  look  over  my  shirts, 
and  mend  that  rip  in  my  coat,  —  and  be  sure 
don't  forget  it,  as  you  did  yesterday.'  For  all 
which  reasons,"  said  Miss  Jennie,  with  a  toss 
of  her  pretty  head,  "  I  mean  to  put  off  marry- 
ing as  long  as  possible,  because  I  think  it  far 
more  agreeable  to  have  gentlemen  friends  with 
whom  I  stand  on  the  ground  of  ceremony  and 
politeness  than  to  be  restricted  to  one  who  is 
living  on  the  credit  of  his  affection.  I  don't 
want  a  man  who  gapes  in  my  face,  reads  a 
newspaper  all  breakfast -time  while  I  want 
somebody  to  talk  to,  smokes  cigars  all  the 
evening,  or  reads  to  himself  when  I  would  like 
him  to  be  entertaining,  and  considers  his  affeo- 


Discourtesy.  221 

ticn  for  me  as  his  right  and  title  to  make  him- 
self generally  disagreeable.  If  he  has  a  bright 
face,  and  pleasant,  entertaining,  gallant  ways. 
I  like  to  be  among  the  ladies  who  may  have 
the  benefit  of  them,  and  should  take  care  how 
I  lost  my  title  to  it  by  coming  with  him  on 
to  the  ground  of  domestic  affection." 

"  Well,  Miss  Jennie,"  said  Bob,  "  it  is  n't 
merely  our  sex  who  are  guilty  of  making  them- 
selves less  agreeable  after  marriage.  Your 
dapper  little  fairy  creatures,  who  dazzle  us  so 
with  wondrous  and  fresh  toilettes,  who  are  so 
trim  and  neat  and  sprightly  and  enchanting, 
what  becomes  of  them  after  marriage  ?  If  he 
reads  the  newspaper  at  the  breakfast-table,  per- 
haps it 's  because  there  is  a  sleepy,  dowdy  wo- 
man opposite,  in  a  faded  gingham  wrapper,  put 
on  in  the  sacredness  of  domestic  privacy,  and 
perhaps  she  has  laid  aside  those  crisp,  spark- 
ling, bright  little  sayings  and  doings  that  used 
to  make  it  impossible  to  look  at  or  listen  to 
anybody  else  when  she  was  about.     Such  things 


222  Little  Foxes. 

are,  sometimes,  among  the  goddesses,  I  believe. 
Of  course,  Marianne  and  I  know  nothing  of 
these  troubles  ;  we,  being  a  model  pair,  sit 
among  the  clouds  and  speculate  on  all  these 
matters  as  spectators  merely." 

"  Well,  you  see  what  your  principle  leads 
to,  carried  out,"  said  Jennie.  "  If  home  is 
merely  the  place  where  one  may  feel  at  lib- 
erty to  be  tired  or  dull  or  disagreeable,  with- 
out losing  one's  character,  I  think  the  women 
have  far  more  right  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
liberty  than  the  men  ;  for  all  the  lonesome, 
dull,  disagreeable  part  of  home-life  comes  into 
their  department.  It  is  they  who  must  keep 
awake  with  the  baby,  if  it  frets  ;  and  if  they 
do  not  feel  spirits  to  make  an  attractive  toilette 
in  the  morning,  or  have  not  the  airy,  graceful 
fancies  that  they  had  when  they  were  girls, 
it  is  not  so  very  much  against  them.  A  house- 
keeper and  nursery-maid  cannot  be  expected 
to  be  quite  as  elegant  in  her  toilette  and  as 
entertaining  in  her  ways   as  a  girl  without  a 


Discourtesy.  223 

care  in  hei  father's  house ;  but  I  think  that 
this  is  no  excuse  for  husbands  neglecting  the 
little  civilities  and  attentions  which  they  used 
to  show  before  marriage.  They  are  strong  and 
well  and  hearty  ;  go  out  into  the  world  and 
hear  and  see  a  great  deal  that  keeps  their 
minds  moving  and  awake  ;  and  they  ought  to 
entertain  their  wives  after  marriage  just  as  their 
wives  entertained  them  before.  That  's  the 
way  my  husband  must  do,  or  I  will  never  have 
one,  —  and  it  will  be  small  loss,  if  I  don't,"  said 
Miss  Jennie. 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  "  I  must  endeavor  to  ini- 
tiate Charley  Sedley  in  time." 

"  Charley  Sedley,  Bob  ! "  said  Jennie,  with 
crimson  indignation.  "  I  wonder  you  will  al- 
ways bring  up  that  old  story,  when  I  've  told 
you  a  hundred  times  how  disagreeable  it  is  ! 
Charley  and  I  are  good  friends,  but  —  " 

"  There,  there,"  said  Bob,  "  that  will  do  ;  you 
don't  need  to  proceed  further." 

"  You  only  said  that  because  you  could  n't 
answer  my  argument,"  said  Jennie. 


224  Little  Foxes. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  said  Bob,  "you  know  ev 
erything  has  two  sides  to  it,  and  I  '11  admit 
that  you  have  brought  up  the  opposite  side  to 
mine  quite  handsomely  ;  but,  for  all  that,  I  am 
convinced,  that,  if  what  I  said  was  not  really 
the  truth,  yet  the  truth  lies  somewhere  in  the 
vicinity  of  it.  As  I  said  before,  so  I  say  again, 
true  love  ought  to  beget  a  freedom  which  shall 
do  away  with  the  necessity  of  ceremony,  and 
much  may  and  ought  to  be  tolerated  among 
near  and  dear  friends  that  would  be  discour- 
teous among  strangers.  I  am  just  as  sure  of 
this  as  of  anything  in  the  world." 

"  And  yet,"  said  my  wife,  "  there  is  certainly 
truth  in  the  much  quoted  lines  of  Cowper,  on 
Friendship,  where  he  says,  — 

"  As  similarity  of  mind, 
Or  something  not  to  be  defined, 

First  fixes  our  attention, 
So  manners  decent  and  polite, 
The  same  we  pract'sed  at  first  sight, 
Will  save  it  from  declension." 

"  Well,  now,"  said   Bob,    "  I  Ve   seen  enough 


Discourtesy.  225 

of  Fiench  politeness  between  married  people 
When  I  was  in  Paris,  I  remember  there  was 
in  our  boarding-house  a  Madame  de  Villiers, 
whose  husband  had  conferred  upon  her  his 
name  and  the  de  belonging  to  it,  in  considera- 
tion of  a  snug  little  income  which  she  brought 
to  him  by  the  marriage.  His  conduct  towards 
her  was  a  perfect  model  of  all  the  graces  of 
civilized  life.  It  was  true  that  he  lived  on  her 
income,  and  spent  it  in  promenading  the  Bou- 
levards, and  visiting  theatres  and  operas  with 
divers  fair  friends  of  easy  morals  ;  still  all  this 
was  so  courteously,  so  politely,  so  diplomatically 
arranged  with  Madame,  that  it  was  quite  worth 
while  to  be  neglected  and  cheated  for  the  sake 
of  having  the  thing  done  in  so  finished  and 
elegant  a  manner.  According  to  his  showing, 
Monsieur  had  taken  the  neat  little  apartment 
for  her  in  our  pension,  because  his  circumstances 
were  embarrassed,  and  he  would  be  in  despair 
to  drag  such  a  creature  into  hardships  which 

he  described  as  terrific,  and  which  he  was  re- 
10*  o 


226  Little  Foxes, 

solved  heroically  to  endure  alone.  No,  while 
a  sous  remained  to  them,  his  adored  Julie  should 
have  her  apartment  and  the  comforts  of  life 
secured  to  her,  while  the  barest  attic  should 
suffice  for  him.  Never  did  he  visit  her  without 
kissing  her  hand  with  the  homage  due  to  a 
princess,  complimenting  her  on  her  good  looks, 
bringing  bonbons,  entertaining  her  with  most 
ravishing  small-talk  of  all  the  interesting  on-dits 
in  Paris  ;  and  these  visits  were  most  particu- 
larly frequent  as  the  time  for  receiving  her 
quarterly  instalments  approached.  And  so  Ma- 
dame adored  him  and  could  refuse  him  noth- 
ing, believed  all  his  stories,  and  was  well  con- 
tent to  live  on  a  fourth  of  her  own  income  for 
the  sake  of  so  engaging  a  husband." 

"  Well,"  said  Jennie,  "  I  don't  know  to  what 
purpose  your  anecdote  is  related,  but  to  me  it 
means  simply  this  :  if  a  rascal,  without  heart, 
without  principle,  without  any  good  quality,  can 
win  and  keep  a  woman's  heart  merely  by  being 
invariably  polite   and   agreeable,   while   in   hex 


Discourtesy.  227 

presence,  how  much  more  might  a  man  of 
sense  and  principle  and  real  affection  do  by 
the  same  means  !  I  'm  sure,  if  a  man  who  neg- 
lects a  woman,  and  robs  her  of  her  money, 
nevertheless  keeps  her  affections,  merely  be- 
cause whenever  he  sees  her  he  is  courteous 
and  attentive,  it  certainly  shows  that  courtesy 
stands  for  a  great  deal  in  the  matter  of  love." 

"  With  foolish  women,"  said  Bob. 

"  Yes,  and  with  sensible  ones  too,"  said  my 
wife.  "  Your  Monsieur  presents  a  specimen  of 
the  French  way  of  doing  a  bad  thing  ;  but  I 
know  a  poor  woman  whose  husband  did  the 
same  thing  in  English  fashion,  without  kisses 
or  compliments.  Instead  of  flattering,  he  swore 
at  her,  and  took  her  money  away  without  the 
ceremony  of  presenting  bonbons  ;  and  I  assure 
you,  if  the  thing  must  be  done  at  all,  I  would, 
for  my  part,  much  rather  have  it  done  in  the 
French  than  the  English  manner.  The  courtesy, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  is  a  good,  and  far  better  than 
nothing,  —  though,  of  course,  one  would  rather 


228  Little  Foxes. 

have  substantial  good  with  it.  If  one  must  be 
robbed,  one  would  rather  have  one's  money 
wheedled  away  agreeably,  with  kisses  and  bon- 
bons, than  be  knocked  down  and  trampled 
upon." 

"  The  mistake  that  is  made  on  this  subject," 
said  I,  "is  in  comparing,  as  people  generally 
do,  a  polished  rascal  with  a  boorish  good  man ; 
but  the  polished  rascal  should  be  compared 
with  the  polished  good  man,  and  the  boorish 
rascal  with  the  boorish  good  man,  and  then  we 
get  the  true  value  of  the  article. 

"  It  is  true,  as  a  general  rule,  that  those 
races  of  men  that  are  most  distinguished  for 
outward  urbanity  and  courtesy  are  the  least 
distinguished  for  truth  and  sincerity  ;  and  hence 
the  well-known  alliterations,  '  fair  and  false,' 
'  smooth  and  slippery.'  The  fair  and  false 
Greek,  the  polished  and  wily  Italian,  the  cour- 
teous and  deceitful  Frenchman,  are  associations 
which,  to  the  strong,  downright,  courageous 
Anglo-Saxon,  make  up-and-down  rudeness  and 


Discourtesy.  229 

blunt  discourtesy  a  type  of  truth  and  hon- 
esty. 

"  No  one  can  read  French  literature  without 
feeling  how  the  element  of  courtesy  pervades 
every  department  of  life, — how  carefully  people 
avoid  being  personally  disagreeable  in  their  in- 
tercourse. A  domestic  quarrel,  if  we  may  trust 
French  plays,  is  carried  on  with  all  the  refine- 
ments of  good  breeding,  and  insults  are  given 
with  elegant  civility.  It  seems  impossible  to 
translate  into  French  the  direct  and  downright 
brutalities  which  the  English  tongue  allows. 
The  whole  intercourse  of  life  is  arranged  on 
the  understanding  that  all  personal  contacts 
shall  be  smooth  and  civil,  and  such  as  to  ob- 
viate the  necessity  of  personal  jostle  and  jar. 

"  Does  a  Frenchman  engage  a  clerk  or  other 
employe,  and  afterwards  hear  a  report  to  his 
disadvantage,  the  last  thing  he  would  think  of 
would  be  to  tell  a  downright  unpleasant  truth 
to*the  man.  He  writes  him  a  civil  note,  and 
tells    him,   that,   in    consequence    of    sn  unex- 


230  Little  Foxes. 

pected  change  of  business,  he  shall  not  need 
an  assistant  in  that  department,  and  much  re- 
grets that  this  will  deprive  him  of  Monsieur's 
agreeable  society,  etc. 

"A  more  striking  example  cannot  be  found 
of  this  sort  of  intercourse  than  the  representa- 
tion in  the  life  of  Madame  George  Sand  of  the 
proceedings  between  her  father  and  his  mother. 
There  is  all  the  romance  of  affection  between 
this  mother  and  son.  He  writes  her  the  most 
devoted  letters,  he  kisses  her  hand  on  every 
page,  he  is  the  very  image  of  a  gallant,  charm- 
ing, lovable  son,  while  at  the  same  time  he  is 
secretly  making  arrangements  for  a  private  mar- 
riage with  a  woman  of  low  rank  and  indiffer- 
ent reputation,  —  a  marriage  which  he  knows 
would  be  like  death  to  his  mother.  He  mar- 
ries, lives  with  his  wife,  has  one  or  two  chil- 
dren by  her,  before  he  will  pain  the  heart  of 
his  adored  mother  by  telling  her  the  truth. 
The  adored  mother  suspects  her  son,  but  no 
trace  of  the  suspicion  appears  in  her  letters  to 


Discourtesy.  231 

him.  The  questions  which  an  English  parent 
would  level  at  him  point-blank  she  is  entirely 
too  delicate  to  address  to  her  dear  Maurice  ; 
but  she  puts  them  to  the  Prefect  of  Police,  and 
ferrets  out  the  marriage  through  legal  docu- 
ments, while  yet  no  trace  of  this  knowledge 
dims  the  affectionateness  of  her  letters,  or  the 
serenity  of  her  reception  of  her  son  when  he 
comes  to  bestow  on  her  the  time  which  he 
can  spare  from  his  family  cares.  In  an  Eng- 
lish or  American  family  there  would  have  been 
a  battle  royal,  an  open  rupture  ;  whereas  this 
courteous  son  and  mother  go  on  for  years  with 
this  polite  drama,  she  pretending  to  be  deceived 
while  she  is  not,  and  he  supposing  that  he  is 
sparing  her  feelings  by  the  deception. 

"  Now  it  is  the  reaction  from  such  a  style  of 
life  on  the  truthful  Anglo-Saxon  nature  that 
leads  to  an  undervaluing  of  courtesy,  as  if  it 
were  of  necessity  opposed  to  sincerity.  But  it 
does  not  follow,  because  all  is  not  gold  that 
glitters,  that  nothing  that  glitters  is  gold,  and 


232  Little  Foxes. 

because  courtesy  and  delicacy  of  personal  inter- 
course are  often  perverted  to  deceit,  that  they 
are  not  valuable  allies  of  truth.  No  woman 
would  prefer  a  slippery,  plausible  rascal  to  a 
rough,  unceremonious  honest  man  ;  but  of  two 
men  equally  truthful  and  affectionate,  every  wo- 
man would  prefer  the  courteous  one." 

"Well,"  said  Bob,  "there  is  a  loathsome, 
sickly  stench  of  cowardice  and  distrust  about 
all  this  kind  of  French  delicacy  that  is  enough 
to  drive  an  honest  fellow  to  the  other  extreme. 
True  love  ought  to  be  a  robust,  hardy  plant, 
that  can  stand  a  free  out-door  life  of  sun  and 
wind  and  rain.  People  who  are  too  delicate 
and  courteous  ever  fully  to  speak  their  minds 
to  each  other  are  apt  to  have  stagnant  residu- 
ums  of  unpleasant  feelings  which  breed  all  sorts 
of  gnats  and  mosquitos.  My  rule  is,  Say  ev- 
erything out  as  you  go  along ;  have  your  little 
tiffs,  and  get  over  them  ;  jar  and  jolt  and  rub 
a  little,  and  learn  to  take  rubs  and  bear  jolts 

"  If  I  take  less  thought  and  use  less  civility 


Discourtesy.  233 

of  expression,  in  announcing  to  Marianne  that 
her  coffee  is  roasted  too  much,  than  I  did  to 
old  Mrs.  Pollux  when  I  boarded  with  her,  it 's 
because  I  take  it  Marianne  is  somewhat  more 
a  part  of  myself  than  old  Mrs.  Pollux  was, — 
that  there  is  an  intimacy  and  confidence  be- 
tween us  which  will  enable  us  to  use  the  short- 
hand of  life,  —  that  she  will  not  fall  into  a  pas- 
sion or  fly  into  hysterics,  but  will  merely  speak 
tc  cook  in  good  time.  If  I  don't  thank  her  for 
mending  my  glove  in  just  the  style  that  I  did 
when  I  was  a  lover,  it  is.  because  now  she  does 
that  sort  of  thing  for  me  so  often  that  it  would 
be  a  downright  bore  to  her  to  have  me  always 
on  my  knees  about  it.  All  that  I  could  think 
of  to  say  about  her  graceful  handiness  and  her 
delicate  needle-work  has  been  said  so  often, 
and  is  so  well  understood,  that  it  has  entirely 
lost  the  zest  of  originality.  Marianne  and  I 
have  had  sundry  little  battles,  in  which  the 
victory  came  out  on  both  sides,  each  of  us 
thinking  the  better  of  the  other  for  the  vigor 


234  Little  Foxes. 

and  spirit  with  which  we  conducted  matters , 
and  our  habit  of  perfect  plain-speaking  and 
truth-telling  to  each  other  is  better  than  all 
the  delicacies  that  ever  were  hatched  up  in  the 
hot-bed  of  French  sentiment." 

"  Perfectly  true,  perfectly  right,"  said  I.  "  Ev- 
ery word  good  as  gold.  Truth  before  all  things ; 
sincerity  before  all  things :  pure,  clear,  diamond- 
bright  sincerity  is  of  more  value  than  the  gold 
of  Ophir ;  the  foundation  of  all  love  must  rest 
here.  How  those  people  do  who  live  in  the 
nearest  and  dearest  intimacy  with  friends  who 
they  believe  will  lie  to  them  for  any  purpose, 
even  the  most  refined  and  delicate,  is  a  mys- 
tery to  me.  If  I  once  know  that  my  wife  or 
my  friend  will  tell  me  only  what  they  think 
will  be  agreeable  to  me,  then  I  am  at  once 
lost,  my  way  is  a  pathless  quicksand.  But  all 
this  being  premised,  I  still  say  that  we  Anglo- 
Saxons  might  improve  our  domestic  life,  if  we 
would  graft  upon  the  strong  stock  of  its  homely 
sincerity  the  courteous  graces  of  the  French 
char?^ter. 


Discourtesy.  235 

"If  anybody  wishes  to  know  exactly  what  I 
mean  by  this,  let  him  read  the  Memoir  of  De 
Tocque^iPe,  whom  I  take  to  be  the  representa- 
tive of  the  French  ideal  man ;  and  certainly 
the  Kind  of  family  life  which  his  domestic  let- 
ters disclose  has  a  delicacy  and  a  beauty  which 
adorn  its  solid  worth. 

"What  I  have  to  say  on  this  matter  is,  that 
it  is  very  dangerous  for  any  individual  man 
or  any  race  of  men  continually  to  cry  up  the 
virtues  to  which  they  are  constitutionally  in- 
clined, and  to  be  constantly  dwelling  with  rep- 
robation on  faults  to  which  they  have  no  man- 
ner of  temptation. 

"  I  think  that  we  of  the  English  race  may 
set  it  down  as  a  general  rule,  that  we  are  in 
no  danger  of  becoming  hypocrites  in  domestic 
life  through  an  extra  sense  of  politeness,  and 
in  some  danger  of  becoming  boors  from  a 
rough,  uncultivated  instinct  of  sincerity.  But 
to  bring  the  matter  to  a  practical  point,  I  will 
specify  some  particulars  in  which  the  courtesy 


236  Little  Foxes. 

we   show   to    strangers   might   with   advantage 
be  grafted  into  our  home-life. 

"In  the  first  place,  then,  let  us  watch  our 
course  when  we  are  entertaining  strangers 
whose  good  opinion  we  wish  to  propitiate 
We  dress  ourselves  with  care,  we  study  whal 
it  will  be  agreeable  to  say,  we  do  not  sufifei 
our  natural  laziness  to  prevent  our  being  very 
alert  in  paying  small  attentions,  we  start  across 
the  room  for  an  easier  chair,  we  stoop  to  pick 
up  the  fan,  we  search  for  the  mislaid  news- 
paper, and  all  this  for  persons  in  whom  we  have 
no  particular  interest  beyond  the  passing  hour ; 
while  with  those  friends  whom  we  love  and 
respect  we  too  often  sit  in  our  old  faded  habili- 
ments, and  let  them  get  their  own  chair,  and 
look  up  their  own  newspaper,  and  fight  their 
own  way  daily,  without  any  of  this  preventing 
care. 

"  In  the  matter  of  personal  adornment,  espe- 
cially, there  are  a  great  many  people  who  are 
cnargeable   with    the    same    fault    that    I    have 


Discourtesy .  237 

already  spoken  of  in  reference  to  household 
arrangements.  They  have  a  splendid  ward- 
robe for  company,  and  a  shabby  and  sordid 
one  for  domestic  life.  A  woman  puts  all  her 
income  into  party-dresses,  and  thinks  anything 
will  do  to  wear  at  home.  All  her  old  tumbled 
finery,  her  frayed,  dirty  silks  and  soiled  ribbons, 
are  made  to  do  duty  for  her  hours  of  inter- 
course with  her  dearest  friends.  Some  seem 
to  be  really  principled  against  wearing  a  hand- 
some dress  in  every-day  life ;  they  '  cannot 
afford'  to  be  well-dressed  in  private.  Now 
what  I  should  recommend  would  be  to  take 
the  money  necessary  for  one  or  two  party- 
dresses  and  spend  it  upon  an  appropriate  and 
tasteful  home-toilette,  and  to  make  it  an  avowed 
object  to  look  prettily  at  home. 

"  We  men  are  a  sort  of  stupid,  blind  animals : 
we  know  when  we  are  pleased,  but  we  don't 
know  what  it  is  that  pleases  us ;  we  say  we 
don't  care  anything  about  flowers,  but  if  there 
is  a  flower-garden  under  our  window,  somehow 


238  Little  Foxes. 

or  other  we  are  dimly  conscious  of  it,  and  feel 
that  there  is  something  pleasant  there ;  and 
so  when  our  wives  and  daughters  are  prettily 
and  tastefully  attired,  we  know  it,  and  it  glad- 
dens our  life  far  more  than  we  are  perhaps 
aware  of." 

"Well,  Papa,"  said  Jennie,  "I  think  the  men 
ought  to  take  just  as  much  pains  to  get  them- 
selves up  nicely  after  marriage  as  the  women. 
I  think  there  are  such  things  as  tumbled  shirt- 
collars  and  frowzy  hair  and  muddy  shoes 
brought  into  the  domestic  sanctuary,  as  well 
as  frayed  silks  and  dirty  ribbons." 

"  Certainly,"  I  said ;  "  but  you  know  we  are 
the  natural  Hottentot,  and  you  are  the  mission- 
aries who  are  to  keep  us  from  degenerating ; 
we  are  the  clumsy,  old,  blind  Vulcan,  and  you 
the  fair  Cytherea,  the  bearers  of  the  magic 
cestus,  and  therefore  it  is  to  you  that  this  head 
more  particularly  belongs. 

"  Now  I  maintain  that  in  family-life  there 
should   be  an  effort  not  only  to   be   neat   and 


Discourtesy.  239 

decent  in  the  arrangement  of  our  person,  but 
to  be  also  what  the  French  call  coquette,  —  or 
to  put  it  in  plain  English,  there  should  be  an 
endeavor  to  make  ourselves  look  handsome  in 
the   eyes   of  our   dearest  friends. 

"  Many  worthy  women,  who  would  not  for 
the  world  be  found  wanting  in  the  matter  of 
personal  neatness,  seem  somehow  to  have  the 
notion  that  any  study  of  the  arts  of  personal 
beauty  in  family-life  is  unmatronly ;  they  buy 
their  clothes  with  simple  reference  to  econ- 
omy, and  have  them  made  up  without  any 
question  of  becomingness ;  and  hence  marriage 
sometimes  transforms  a  charming,  trim,  tripping 
young  lady  into  a  waddling  matron  whose 
every-day  toilette  suggests  only  the  idea  of  a 
feather-bed  tied  round  with  a  string.  For  my 
part,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  summary  ban- 
ishment  of  the  Graces  from  the  domestic  cir- 
cle as  soon  as  the  first  baby  makes  its  appear- 
ance is  at  all  conducive  to  domestic  affection. 
Nor  do   I  think  that  there  is  any  need  of  so 


240  Little  Foxes. 

doing.  These  good  housewives  are  in  dange 
like  other  saints,  of  falling  into  the  error  ( 1 
neglecting  the  body  through  too  much  thought- 
fulness  for  others  and  too  little  for  themselves. 
If  a  woman  ever  had  any  attractiveness,  let 
her  try  and  keep  it,  setting  it  down  as  one  of 
her  domestic  talents.  As  for  my  erring  broth- 
ers who  violate  the  domestic  sanctuary  by 
tousled  hair,  tumbled  linen,  and  muddy  shoes, 
I  deliver  them  over  to  Miss  Jennie  without 
benefit   of  clergy. 

"My  second  head  is,  that  there  should  be 
in  family-life  the  same  delicacy  in  the  avoid- 
ance of  disagreeable  topics  that  characterizes 
the  intercourse  of  refined  society  among  stran- 
gers. 

"I  do  not  think  that  it  makes  family-life 
more  sincere,  or  any  more  honest,  to  have  the 
members  of  a  domestic  circle  feel  a  freedom 
to  blurt  out  in  each  other's  faces,  without 
thought  or  care,  all  the  disagreeable  things 
that    may    occur    to    them  :    as,    for    example 


Discourtesy  241 

1  How  horridly  you  look  this  morning  !  What 's 
the  matter  with  you  ? '  —  'Is  there  a  pimple 
coming  on  your  nose  ?  or  what  is  that  spot  ? ' 

—  '  What  made  you  buy  such  a  dreadfully  un- 
becoming dress  ?  It  sets  like  a  witch  !  Who 
cut  it  ? '  — '  What  makes  you  wear  that  pair  of 
old  shoes  ? '  — '  Holloa,  Bess  !  is  that  your  par- 
ty-rig ?  I  should  think  you  were  going  out 
for  a  walking  advertisement  of  a  flower-store ! ' 

—  Observations  of  this  kind  between  husbands 
and  wives,  brothers  and  sisters,  or  intimate 
friends,  do  not  indicate  sincerity,  but  obtuse- 
ness ;  and  the  person  who  remarks  on  the 
pimple  on  your  nose  is  in  many  cases  just  as 
apt  to  deceive  you  as  the  most  accomplished 
Frenchwoman  who  avoids  disagreeable  topics 
in   your   presence. 

"&Iany  families  seem  to  think  that  it  is  a 
proof  of  family  union  and  good-nature  that  they 
can  pick  each  other  to  pieces,  joke  on  each 
other's  feelings  and  infirmities,  and  treat  each 
other  with  a  general  tally-ho-ing  rudeness  with- 
11  r 


242  Little  Foxes. 

out  any  offence  or  ill-feeling.  If  there  is  a 
limping  sister,  there  is  a  never-failing  supply 
of  jokes  on  '  Dot-and-go-one ' ;  and  so  with 
other  defects  and  peculiarities  of  mind  or  man- 
ners. Now  the  perfect  good-nature  and  mu- 
tual confidence  which  allow  all  this  liberty  are 
certainly  admirable ;  but  the  liberty  itself  is 
far  from  making  home-life  interesting  or  agree- 
able. ~) 

"Jokes  upon  personal  or  mental  infirmities, 
and  a  general  habit  of  saying  things  in  jest 
which  would  be  the  height  of  rudeness  if  said 
in  earnest,  are  all  habits  which  take  from  the 
delicacy   of  family   affection. 

"In  all  this  rough  playing  with  edge-tools 
many  are  hit  and  hurt  wno  are  ashamed  or 
afraid  to  complain.  And  after  all,  what  pos- 
sible good  or  benefit  comes  from  it  ?  Courage 
to  say  disagreeable  things,  when  it  is  neces- 
sary to  say  them  for  the  highest  good  of  the 
person  addressed,  is  a  sublime  quality ;  but  a 
careless   habit   of   saying    them,    in    the    mere 


Discourtesy.  24  3 

lreedom  of  family  intercourse,  is  certainly  as 
great  a  spoiler  of  the  domestic  vines  as  any 
fox   running 

"  There  is  one  point  under  this  head  which 
I  enlarge  upon  for  the  benefit  of  my  own  sex : 
I  mean  table-criticisms.  The  conduct  of  house- 
keeping, in  the  present  state  of  domestic  ser- 
vice, certainly  requires  great  allowance ;  and 
the  habit  of  unceremonious  comment  on  the 
cooking  and  appointments  of  the  table,  in 
which  some  husbands  habitually  allow  them- 
selves, is  the  most  unpardonable  form  of  do- 
mestic rudeness.  If  a  wife  has  philosophy 
enough  not  to  mind  it,  so  much  the  worse  for 
her  husband,  as  it  confirms  him  in  an  unseem- 
ly habit,  embarrassing  to  guests  and  a  bad  ex- 
ample to  children.  If  she  has  no  feelings  that 
he  is  bound  to  respect,  he  should  at  least  re- 
spect decorum  and  good  taste,  and  confine  the 
discussion  of  such  matters  to  private  inter- 
course, and  not  initiate  every  guest  and  child 
into  the  grating  and  greasing  of  the  wheels 
of  the   domestic   machinery. 


244  Little  Foxes. 

"Another  thing  in  which  families  might  im- 
itate the  politeness  of  strangers  is  a  wise  reti- 
cence with  regard  to  the  asking  of  questions 
and   the   offering   of  advice. 

"  A  large  family  includes  many  persons  of 
different  tastes,  habits,  modes  of  thinking  and 
acting,  and  it  would  be  wise  and  well  to  leave 
to  each  one  that  measure  of  freedom  in  these 
respects  which  the  laws  of  general  politeness 
require.  Brothers  and  sisters  may  love  each 
other  very  much,  and  yet  not  enough  to  make 
joint-stock  of  all  their  ideas,  plans,  wishes, 
schemes,  friendships.  There  are  in  every  fam- 
ily-circle individuals  whom  a  certain  sensitive- 
ness of  nature  inclines  to  quietness  and  re 
serve ;  and  there  are  very  well-meaning  fam 
ilies  where  no  such  quietness  or  reserve  is  pos- 
sible. Nobody  can  be  let  alone,  nobody  may 
have  a  secret,  nobody  can  move  in  any  direc- 
tion,  without  a  host  of  inquiries  and  comments 
1  Who  is  your  letter  from  ?  Let 's  see.'  — '  My 
letter  is  from  So-and-So.'  — '  He  writing  to  you  ? 


Discourtesy.  245 

[  did  n't  know  that.  What 's  he  writing  about  ? ' 
— '  Where  did  you  go  yesterday  ?  What  did 
you  buy  ?  What  did  you  give  for  it  ?  What 
are  you  going  to  do  with  it  ?  - '  Seems  to  me 
that 's  an  odd  way  to  do.  I  should  n't  do  so.' 
— '  Look  here,  Mary  ;  Sarah 's  going  to  have 
a  dress  of  silk  tissue  this  spring.  Now  I  think 
they  're  too  dear,  —  don't  you  ? ' 

"I  recollect  seeing  in  some  author  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  true  gentleman,  in  which,  among  other 
traits,  he  was  characterized  as  the  man  that 
asks  the  fewest  questions.  This  trait  of  re- 
fined society  might  be  adopted  into  home-life 
in  a  far  greater  degree  than  it  is,  and  make  it 
far  more  agreeable. 

"If  there  is  perfect  unreserve  and  mutual 
confidence,  let  it  show  itself  in  free  communi- 
cations coming  unsolicited.  It  may  fairly  be 
presumed,  that,  if  there  is  anything  our  inti- 
mate friends  wish  us  to  know,  they  will  tell  us 
of  it,  —  and  that  when  we  are  on  close  and  con- 
fidential   terms    with    persons,    and    there   are 


246  Little  Foxes. 

topics  on  which  they  do  not  speak  to  us,  it  is 
because  for  some  reason  they  prefer  to  keep 
silence  concerning  them ;  and  the  delicacy  that 
respects  a  friend's  silence  is  one  of  the  charms 
of  life. 

"As  with  the  asking  of  questions,  so  with 
the  offering  of  advice,  there  should  be  among 
friends  a  wise  reticence.    . 

"Some  families  are  always  calling  each  other 
to  account  at  every  step  of  the  day.  'What 
did  you  put  on  that  dress  for  ?  Why  did  n't 
you  wear  that  ? '  — '  What  did  you  do  this  for  ? 
Why  did  n't  you  do  that  ? '  — '  Now  /  should 
advise  you  to  do  thus  and  so/  —  And  these 
comments  and  criticisms  and  advices  are  ac- 
companied with  an  energy  of  feeling  that  makes 
it  rather  difficult  to  disregard  them. 

"Now  it  is  no  matter  how  dear  and  how 
good  our  friends  may  be,  if  they  abridge  our 
liberty  and  fetter  the  free  exercise  of  our  life, 
it  is  inevitable  that  we  shall  come  to  enjoying 
ourselves  much  better  where  they  are  not  than 


Discourtesy.  247 

where  they  are ;  and  one  of  the  reasons  why 
brothers  and  sisters  or  children  so  often  diverge 
from  the  family-circle  in  the  choice  of  confi- 
dants is,  that  extraneous  friends  are  bound  by 
certain  laws  of  delicacy  not  to  push  inquiries, 
criticisms,  or  advice  too  far. 

"Parents  would  do  well  to  remember  in  time 
when  their  children  have  grown  up  into  inde- 
pendent human  beings,  and  use  with  a  wise 
moderation  those  advisory  and  admonitory  pow- 
ers with  which  they  guided  their  earlier  days. 
Let  us  give  everybody  a  right  to  live  his  own 
life,  as  far  as  possible,  and  avoid  imposing  our 
own  personalities  on  another. 

"If  I  were  to  picture  a  perfect  family,  it 
should  be  a  union  of  people  of  individual  and 
marked  character,  who  through  love  have  come 
to  a  perfect  appreciation  of  each  other,  and 
who  so  wisely  understand  themselves  and  one 
another  that  each  may  move  freely  along  his 
or  her  own  track  without  jar  or  jostle,  —  a 
family  where  affection  is  always  sympathetic 
and   receptive,    but    never  inquisitive,  —  where 


248  Little  Foxes. 

all  personal  delicacies  are  respected,  —  and 
where  there  is  a  sense  of  privacy  and  seclusion 
in  following  one's  own  course,  unchallenged 
by  the  watchfulness  of  others,  yet  withal  a 
sense  of  society  and  support  in  a  knowledge 
of  the  kind  dispositions  and  interpretations  of 
all  around. 

"  In  treating  of  family  discourtesies,  I  have 
avoided  speaking  of  those  which  come  from 
ill-temper  and  brute  selfishness,  because  these 
are  sins  more  than  mistakes.  An  angry  per- 
son is  generally  impolite  ;  and  where  conten- 
tion and  ill-will  are,  there  can  be  no  courtesy. 
What  I  have  mentioned  are  rather  the  lackings 
of  good  and  often  admirable  people,  who  merely 
need  to  consider  in  their  family-life  a  little  more 
of  whatsoever  things  are  lovely.  With  such  the 
mere  admission  of  anything  to  be  pursued  as 
a  duty  secures  the  purpose ;  only  in  theit 
somewhat  earnest  pursuit  of  the  substantiate 
of  life  they  drop  and  pass  by  the  little  things 
that  give  it  sweetness  and  perfume.  To  such 
a  word  is  enough,  and  that  word  is  said." 


VII. 

EXACTINGNESS. 

A  T  length  I  am  arrived  at  my  seventh  fox, 
—  the    last    of  the    domestic   quadrupeds 
against  which  I  have  vowed  a  crusade,  —  and 
here  opens  the  chase  of  him.     I  call  him 

EX  A  CTINGNESS. 

And  having  done  this,  I  drop  the  metaphor,  for 
fear  of  chasing  it  beyond  the  rules  of  graceful 
rhetoric,  and  shall  proceed  to   define  the  trait. 

All  the  other  domestic  faults  of  which  I  have 
treated  have  relation  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  ends  of  life  are  pursued  ;  but  this  one  is 
an  underlying,  false,  and  diseased  state  of  con- 
ception as  to  the  very  ends  and  purposes  of 
life  itself. 

If  a  piano  is  tuned  to  exact  concert  pitch, 
the  majority  of  voices  must  fall  below  it ;  for 
ii  * 


250  Little  Foxes. 

which  reason,  most  people  indulgently  allow 
their  pianos  to  be  tuned  a  little  below  this 
point,  in  accommodation  to  the  average  power 
of  the  human  voice.  Persons  of  only  ordinary 
powers  of  voice  would  be  considered  absolute 
monomaniacs,  who  should  insist  on  having  their 
pianos  tuned  to  accord  with  any  abstract  no- 
tion of  propriety  or  perfection,  —  rendering 
themselves  wretched  by  persistently  singing  all 
their  pieces  miserably  out  of  tune  in  conse- 
quence. 

Yet  there  are  persons  who  keep  the  require- 
ments of  life  strained  up  always  at  concert 
pitch,  and  are  thus  worn  out  and  made  misera- 
ble all  their  days  by  the  grating  of  a  perpetual 
discord. 

There  is  a  faculty  of  the  human  mind  to 
which  phrenologists  have  given  the  name  of 
Ideality,  which  is  at  the  foundation  of  this 
exactingness.  Ideality  is  the  faculty  oy  which 
we  conceive  of  and  long  for  perfection  ;  and  at 
a  glance  it  will  be  seen,  that,  so  far  from  being 


Exacting?  t'ess.  2  5 1 

d\\  evil  ingredient  of  human  nature,  it  is  the 
one  element  of  progress  that  distinguishes 
man's  nature  from  that  of  the  brute.  While 
animals  go  on  from  generation  to  generation, 
learning  nothing  and  forgetting  nothing,  prac- 
tising their  small  circle  of  the  arts  of  life  no 
better  and  no  worse  from  year  to  year,  man  is 
driven  by  ideality  to  constant  invention  and 
alteration,  whence  come  arts,  sciences,  and  the 
whole  progress  of  society.  Ideality  induces 
discontent  with  present  attainments,  posses- 
sions, and  performances,  and  hence  come  bet- 
ter and  better  ones.  So  in  morals,  ideality 
constantly  incites  to  higher  and  nobler  modes 
of  living  and  thinking,  and  is  the  faculty  to 
which  the  most  effective  teachings  of  the  great 
Master  of  Christianity  are  addressed.  To  be 
dissatisfied  with  present  attainments,  with  earth- 
ly things  and  scenes,  to  aspire  and  press  on  to 
something  forever  fair,  yet  forever  receding  be- 
fore our  steps,  —  this  is  the  teaching  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  work  of  the  Christian. 


252  Little  Foxes. 

But  every  faculty  has  its  own  instinctive,  wild 
growth,  which,  like  the  spontaneous  produce 
of  the  earth,  is  crude  and  weedy. 

Revenge,  says  Lord  Bacon,  is  a  sort  of  wild 
justice,  obstinacy  is  untutored  firmness,  —  and 
so  exactingness  is  untrained  ideality ;  and  a 
vast  deal  of  misery,  social  and  domestic,  comes, 
not  of  the  faculty,  but  of  its  untrained  exercise. 

The  faculty  which  is  ever  conceiving  and 
desiring  something  better  and  more  perfect 
must  be  modified  in  its  action  by  good  sense, 
patience,  and  conscience,  or  it  induces  a  mor- 
bid, discontented  spirit,  which  courses  through 
the  veins  of  individual  and  family  life  like  a 
subtle  poison. 

In  a  certain  neighborhood  are  two  families 
whose  social  and  domestic  animus  illustrates 
the  difference  between  ideality  and  the  want 
of  it. 

The  Day  tons  are  a  large,  easy-natured,  joy 
ous  race,  hospitable,  kindly,  and  friendly. 

Nothing   about  their  establishment  is  mucb 


Exactingness.  253 

above  mediocrity.  The  grounds  are  tolerably 
kept,,  the  table  is  tolerably  fair,  the  servant? 
moderately  good,  and  the  family  character  anc 
attainments  of  the  same  average  level. 

Mrs.  Dayton  is  a  decent  housekeeper,  and 
so  her  bread  be  not  sour,  her  butter  not  frowy, 
the  food  abundant,  and  the  table-cloth  ana 
dishes  clean,  she  troubles  her  head  little  with 
the  niceties  and  refinements  of  the  menage. 

She  accepts  her  children  as  they  come  from 
the  hand  of  Nature,  simply  opening  her  eyes 
to  discern  what  they  are,  never  raising  the 
query  what  she  would  have  had  them,  —  form 
ing  no  very  high  expectations  concerning  them 
and  well  content  with  whatever  develops. 

A  visitor  in  the  family  can  easily  see  a  thou 
sand  defects  in  the  conduct  of  affairs,  in  the 
management  of  the  children,  and  in  this,  that 
and  the  other  portion  of  the  household  ar 
rangements  ;  but  he  can  see  and  feel,  also,  a 
perfect  comfortableness  in  the  domestic  atmos- 
phere that  almost  atones  for  any  defects.     Ho 


254  Little  Foxes. 

can  see  that  in  a  thousand  respects  things 
might  be  better  done,  if  the  family  were  not 
perfectly  content  to  have  them  as  they  are, 
and  that  each  individual  member  might  make 
higher  attainments  in  various  directions,  were 
there  not  such  entire  satisfaction  with  what 
is  already  attained. 

Trying  each  other  by  very  moderate  stand- 
ards and  measurements,  there  is  great  mutual 
complacency.  The  oldest  boy  does  not  get  an 
appointment  in  college,  —  they  never  expected 
he  would  ;  but  he  was  a  respectable  scholar, 
and  they  receive  him  with  acclamations  such 
as  another  family  would  bestow  on  a  valedic- 
torian. The  daughters  do  not  profess,  as  we 
are  told,  to  draw  like  artists,  but  some  very 
moderate  performances  in  the  line  of  the  fine 
arts  are  dwelt  on  with  much  innocent  pleasure. 
They  thrum  a  few  tunes  on  the  piano,  and  the 
whole  family  listen  and  approve.  All  unite  in 
singing  in  a  somewhat  uncultured  manner  a 
few  psalm-tunes  or  songs,  and  take  more  com- 


Exactingness.  255 

fort  in  them  than  many  amateurs  do  in  their 
well-drilled  performances. 

So  goes  the  world  with  the  Daytons  ;  and 
when  you  visit  them,  if  you  often  feel  that  you 
could  ask  more  and  suggest  much  improvement, 
yet  you  cannot  help  enjoying  the  quiet  satisfac- 
tion which  breathes  around  you. 

Now  right  across  the  way  from  the  Daytons 
live  the  Mores  ;  and  the  Mores  are  the  very 
opposites  of  the  Daytons. 

Everything  about  their  establishment  is 
brought  to  the  highest  point  of  culture.  The 
carriage-drive  never  shows  a  weed,  the  lawn  is 
velvet,  the  flower-beds  ever-blooming,  the  fruit- 
trees  and  vines  grow  exactly  like  the  patterns 
in  the  best  pomological  treatises  Within  doors 
the  housekeeping  is  faultless,  —  all  seems  to  be 
moving  in  time  and  tune,  —  the  table  is  more 
than  good,  it  is  superlative,  —  every  article  is 
in  its  way  a  model,  —  the  children  appear  to 
you  to  be  growing  up  after  the  most  patent- 
right  method,   duly  trained,    snipped,    and   cul- 


256  Little  Foxes. 

tured,  like  the  pear-trees  and  grape-vines 
Nothing  is  left  to  accident,  or  done  without 
much  laborious  consideration  of  the  best  man- 
ner of  doing  it ;  and  the  consequences,  in  the 
eyes  of  their  simple,  unsophisticated  neighbors, 
are  very  wonderful. 

Nevertheless  this  is  not  a  happy  family.  All 
their  perfections  do  not  begin  to  afford  them 
one  tithe  of  the  satisfaction  that  the  Daytons 
derive  from  their  ragged  and  scrambling  per- 
formances. 

The  two  daughters,  Jane  and  Maria,  had  nat- 
urally very  sweet  voices,  and  when  they  were 
little,  trilled  tunes  in  a  very  pleasant  and  bird- 
like manner.  But  now,  having  been  instructed 
by  the  best  masters,  and  heard  the  very  first 
artists,  they  never  sing  or  play ;  the  piano  is 
shut,  and  their  voices  are  dumb.  If  you  re- 
quest a  song,  they  tell  you  that  they  never  sing 
now ;  papa  has  such  an  exquisite  taste,  he  takes 
no  interest  in  any  common  music ;  in  short, 
having  heard  Jenny  Lind,  Grisi,  Alboni,  Mario, 


Exactiiigness.  257 

and  others  of  the  tuneful  shell,  this  family  have 
concluded  to  abide  in  silence.  As  to  any  mu- 
sic that  they  could  make,  it  is  n't  to  be  thought 
o£ 

For  the  same  reason,  the  daughters,  after 
attending  a  quarter  or  two  on  the  drawing-ex- 
ercises of  a  celebrated  teacher,  threw  up  their 
pencils  in  disgust,  and  tore  up  very  pretty 
and  agreeable  sketches  which  were  the  mar 
vel  of  their  good-natured  admiring  neighbors. 
If  they  could  draw  like  Signor  Scratchalini, 
if  they  could  hope  to  become  perfect  artists, 
they  tell  you,  they  would  have  persevered ;  but 
they  have  taken  lessons  enough  to  learn  that 
drawing  is  the  labor  of  a  lifetime,  and,  not 
having  a  lifetime  to  give  to  it,  they  resolve  to 
do  nothing  at  all. 

They  have  also,  for  a  similar  reason,  given 
up  letter-writing.  If  their  chirography  were 
as  elegant  as  Charlotte  Cushman's, —  if  they 
were  perfect  mistresses  of  polite  English,  —  if 
they  were  gifted    with  wit,  humor,  and  fancy, 

Q 


258  Little  Foxes. 

like  the  first  masters  of  style,  —  they  would 
take  pleasure  in  epistolary  composition,  and  be 
good  correspondents ;  but  anything  short  of 
that  is  so  intolerable,  that,  except  in  cases  of 
life  and  death  or  urgent  business,  you  cannot 
get  a  line  out  of  them.  Yet  they  write  very 
fair,  agreeable,  womanly  letters,  and  would 
write  much  better  ones,  if  they  allowed  them- 
selves a  little  more  practice. 

Mrs.  More  is  devoured  by  care.  She  sits 
with  a  clouded  brow  in  her  elegant,  well-regu- 
lated house  ;  and  when  you  talk  with  her,  you 
are  surprised  to  learn  that  everything  in  it  is 
in  the  most  dreadful  disorder  from  one  end  to 
the  other.  You  ask  for  particulars,  and  find 
that  the  disorder  has  relation  to  exquisite  stand- 
ards of  the  ways  of  doing  things,  derived  from 
observation  of  life  in  the  most  subdivided  state 
of  European  service,  —  to  all  of  which  she  has 
not  as  yet  been  able  to  raise  her  domestics. 
You  compliment  her  on  her  cook,  and  she  re- 
sponds,   in   plaintive   accents,    "  She   can   do   a 


Exactingness.  259 

tew  things  decently,  but  she  is  nothing  of  a 
cook."  You  refer  with  enthusiasm  to  her  bread, 
her  coffee,  her  muffins  and  hot  rolls,  and  she 
listens  and  sighs.  "Yes,"  she  admits,  "these 
are  eatable,  —  not  bad  ;  but  you  should  have 
seen  the  rolls  at  a  certain  cafe  in  Paris,  and 
the  bread  at  a  certain  nobleman's  in  England, 
where  they  had  a  bakery  in  the  castle,  and  a 
French  baker,  who  did  nothing  all  the  while 
but  to  refine  and  perfect  the  idea  of  bread. 
When  she  thinks  of  these  things,  everything 
in  comparison  is  so  coarse  and  rough !  —  but 
then  she  has  learned  to  be  comfortable."  Thus, 
in  every  department  of  housekeeping,  to  this 
too  well-instructed  person, 

"  Hills  peep  o'er  hills,  and  Alps  on  Alps  arise." 

Not  a  thing  in  her  wide  and  apparently  beau- 
tifully kept  establishment  is  ever  done  well 
enough  to  elicit  from  her  more  than  a  sigh  of 
toleration.  "I  suppose  it  must  do,"  she  faintly 
breathes,  when  pooi  human  nature,  having  tried 
and  tried  again,  evidently  has  got  to  the  boun- 


260  Little  Foxes. 

daries  of  its  capabilities;  "you  may  let  it  go, 
Jane ;    I  never  expect  to  be  suited." 

The  poor  woman,  in  the  midst  of  posses- 
sions and  attainments  which  excite  the  envy  of 
her  neighbors,  is  utterly  restless  and  wretched, 
and  feels  herself  always  baffled  and  unsuccess- 
ful. Her  exacting  nature  makes  her  dissatis- 
fied with  herself  in  everything  that  she  under- 
takes, and  equally  dissatisfied  with  others.  In 
the  whole  family  there  is  little  of  that  pleasure 
which  comes  from  the  consciousness  of  mutual 
admiration  and  esteem,  because  each  one  is 
pitched  to  so  exquisite  a  tone  that  each  is 
afraid  to  touch  another  for  fear  of  making 
discord.  They  are  afraid  of  each  other  every- 
where. They  cannot  sing  to  each  other,  play 
to  each  other,  write  to  each  other ;  they  can- 
not even  converse  together  with  any  freedom, 
because  each  knows  that  the  others  are  so  dis- 
mally well  informed  and  critically  instructed. 

Though  all  agree  in  a  secret  contempt  for 
their   neighbors   over   the   way,  as   living   in  a 


Exactingiiess.  261 

most  heathenish  state  of  ignorant  contentment, 
yet  it  is  a  fact  that  the  elegant  brother  John 
will  often,  on  the  sly,  slip  into  the  Daytons' 
to  spend  an  evening,  and  join  them  in  singing 
glees  and  catches  to  their  old  rattling  piano, 
and  have  a  jolly  time  of  it,  which  he  remem- 
bers in  contrast  with  the  dull,  silent  hours  at 
home.  Kate  Dayton  has  an  uncultivated  voice, 
which  often  falls  from  pitch ;  but  she  has  a 
perfectly  infectious  gayety  of  good-nature,  and 
when  she  is  once  at  the  piano,  and  all  join  in 
some  merry  troll,  he  begins  to  think  that  there 
may  be  something  better  even  than  good  sing- 
ing ;  and  then  they  have  dances  and  charades 
and  games,  all  in  such  contented,  jolly,  im- 
promptu ignorance  of  the  unities  of  time,  place, 
and  circumstance,  that  he  sometimes  doubts, 
where  ignorance  is  such  bliss,  whether  it  is  n't 
in  truth  folly  to  be  wise. 

Jane  and  Maria  laugh  at  John  for  his  par- 
tiality to  the  Daytons,  and  yet  they  themselves 
feel    the    same    attraction.     At    the    Daytons' 


262  Little  Foxes. 

the}  iomehow  find  themselves  heroines  ;  their 
drawings  are  so  admired,  their  singing  is  so 
. charming  to  these  simple  ears,  that  they  are 
often  beguiled  into  giving  pleasure  with  their 
own  despised  acquirements  ;  and  Jane,  some- 
how, is  very  tolerant  of  the  devoted  attention 
of  Will  Dayton,  a  joyous,  honest-hearted  fellow, 
whom,  in  her  heart  of  hearts,  she  likes  none  the 
worse  for  being  unexacting  and  simple  enough 
to  think  her  a  wonder  of  taste  and  accomplish- 
ments. Will,  of  course,  is  the  farthest  possible 
from  the  Admirable  Crichtons  and  exquisite 
Sir  Philip  Sidneys  whom  Mrs.  More  and  the 
young  ladies  talk  up  at  their  leisure,  and  adorn 
with  feathers  from  every  royal  and  celestial 
bird,  when  they  are  discussing  theoretic  possi- 
ble husbands.  He  is  not  in  any  way  distin- 
guished, except  for  a  kind  heart,  strong  native 
good  sense,  and  a  manly  energy  that  has  car- 
ried him  straight  into  the  very  heart  of  many 
a  citadel  of  life,  before  which  the  superior  and 
more  refined   Mr.  John  had   set  himself  down 


Exactingness.  263 

to  deliberate  upon  the  best  and  most  elegant 
way  of  taking  it.  Will's  plain,  homely  intelli- 
gence has  often  in  five  minutes  disentangled 
some  ethereal  snarl  in  which  these  exquisite 
Mores  had  spun  themselves  up,  and  brought 
them  to  his  own  way  of  thinking  by  that  sort 
of  disenchanting  process  which  honest,  practi- 
cal sense  sometimes  exerts  over  ideality. 

The  fact  is,  however,  that  in  each  of  these 
families  there  is  a  natural  defect  which  re- 
quires something  from  the  other  for  complete- 
ness. Taking  happiness  as  the  standard,  the 
Daytons  'have  it  as  against  the  Mores.  Tak- 
ing attainment  as  the  standard,  the  Mores  have 
it  as  against  the  Daytons.  A  portion  of  the 
discontented  ideality  of  the  Mores  would  stim- 
ulate the  Daytons  to  refine  and  perfect  many 
things  which  might  easily  be  made  better,  did 
they  care  enough  to  have  them  so ;  and  a 
portion  of  the  Daytons'  self-satisfied  content- 
ment would  make  the  attainments  and  refine- 
ments of  the  Mores  of-  some  practical  use  in 
advancing  their  own  happiness. 


264  Little  Foxes. 

But  between  these  two  classes  of  natures  lies 
another,  to  which  has  been  given  an  equal 
share  of  ideality,  —  in  which  the  conception 
and  the  desire  of  excellence  are  equally  strong, 
but  in  which  a  discriminating  common-sense 
acts  like  a  balance-wheel  in  machinery.  What 
is  the  reason  that  the  most  exacting  idealists 
never  make  themselves  unhappy  about  not  be- 
ing able  to  fly  like  a  bird  or  swim  like  a  fish  ? 
Because  common-sense  teaches  them  that  these 
accomplishments  are  so  utterly  out  of  the  ques- 
tion that  they  never  arise  to  the  mind  as  ob 
jects  of  desire.  In  these  well-balanced  minds 
we  speak  of,  common-sense  runs  an  instinctive 
line  all  through  life  between  the  attainable 
and  the  unattainable,  and  sets  the  key  of  de- 
sire accordingly. 

Common-sense  teaches  that  there  is  no  one 
branch  of  human  art  or  science  in  which  per- 
fection is  not  a  point  forever  receding.  A  bot- 
anist gravely  assures  us,  that  to  become  per- 
fect in  the  knowledge   of  one   branch   of  sea- 


Exactingness.  265 

weeds  would  take  all  the  time  and  strength  of 
a  man  for  a  lifetime.  There  is  no  limit  to 
music,  to  the  fine  arts.  There  is  never  a  time 
when  the  gardener  can  rest,  saying  that  his 
garden  is  perfect.  Housekeeping,  cooking,  sew- 
ing, knitting,  may  all,  for  aught  we  know,  be 
pushed  on  forever,  without  exhausting  the  capa- 
bilities for  better  doing. 

But  while  attainment  in  everything  is  end- 
less, circumstances  forbid  the  greater  part  of 
human  beings  from  attaining  in  any  direction 
the  half  of  what  they  see  would  be  desirable ; 
and  the  difference  between  the  miserable  ideal- 
ist and  the  contented  realist  often  is,  not  that 
both  do  not  see  what  needs  to  be  done  for 
perfection,  but  that,  seeing  it,  one  is  satisfied 
with  the  attainable,  and  the  other  forever  frets 
and  wears  himself  out  on  the  unattainable. 

The  principal  of  a  large  and  complicated 
public  institution  was  complimented  on  main- 
taining  such    uniformity   of  cheerfulness   amid 

such  a  diversity  of  cares.     "  I  've  made  up  my 
12 


266  Little  Foxes. 

mind  to  be  satisfied,  when  things  are  done 
half  as  well  as  I  would  have  them,"  was  his 
answer ;  and  the  same  philosophy  would  apply 
with  cheering  results  to  the  domestic  sphere. 

There  is  a  saying  which  one  often  hears 
among  common  people,  that  such  and  such  a 
one  are  persons  who  never  could  be  happy, 
unless  everything  went  "just  so!'  —  that  is,  in 
accordance  with  their  highest  conceptions. 

When  these  persons  are  women,  and  under- 
take the  sway  of  a  home  empire,  they  are 
sure  to  be  miserable,  and  to  make  others  so ; 
for  home  is  a  place  where  by  no  kind  of  magic 
possible  to  woman  can  everything  be  always 
made  to  go  "just  so." 

We  may  read  treatises  on  education,  -  and 
very  excellent  ones  there  are.  We  mav  read 
very  nice  stories  illustrating  home  manage- 
ment, in  which  book-children  and  book-ser- 
vants all  work  into  the  author's  plan  with 
obliging  unanimity ;  but  every  real  child  and 
i<+*\  servant  is  an  uncompromising  fact,  whose 


s 


Exactingness.  263 

working  into  our  ideal  of  life  cannot  be  pre- 
dicted with  any  degree  of  certainty.  A  hus- 
band is  another  absolute  fact,  of  whose  con- 
formity to  any  ideal  conceptions  no  positive 
account  can  be  given.  So,  when  a  person  has 
the  most  charming  theories  of  education,  the 
most  complete  ideals  of  life,  it  is  often  his  lot 
to  sit  bound  hand  and  foot  and  see  them  all 
trampled  under  the  heel  of  opposing  circum- 
stances. 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  make  an  ideal  gar- 
den. We  lay  out  our  grounds,  dig,  plant,  trans- 
plant, manure.  We  read  catalogues  of  roses 
till  we  are  bewildered  with  their  lustrous  glo- 
ries. We  set  out  plum,  pear,  and  peach,  we 
luxuriate  in  advance  on  bushels  of  choicest 
grapes,  and  our  theoretic  garden  is  Paradise 
Regained.  But  in  the  actual  garden  there  are 
cut-worms  for  every  cabbage,  squash-bugs  for 
all  the  melons,  slugs  and  rose-bugs  for  the 
roses,  curculios  for  the  plums,  fire-blight  for 
pears,  yellows  for   peaches,  mildew  for  grapes, 


268  Little  Foxes. 

and  late  and  early  frosts,  droughts,  winds,  and 
hail-storms  here  and  there  for  all 

The  garden  and  the  family  are  fair  pictures 
of  each  other.  Both  are  capable  of  the  most 
ravishing  representations  on  paper ;  and  the 
rules  and  directions  for  creating  beauty  and 
perfection  in  both  can  be  made  so  apparently 
plain  that  he  who  runneth  may  read,  and  it 
would  seem  that  a  fool  need  not  err  therein ; 
and  yet  the  actual  results  are  always  halting 
miles  away  behind  expectation  and  desire. 

It  would  be  an  incalculable  gain  to  domes- 
tic happiness,  if  people  would  begin  the  con- 
cert of  life  with  their  instruments  tuned  to  a 
very  low  pitch :  they  who  receive  the  most 
happiness  are  generally  they  who  demand  and 
expect  the  least. 

Ideality  often  becomes  an  insidious  mental 
and  moral  disease,  acting  all  the  more  subtly 
from  its  alliances  with  what  is  highest  and 
noblest  within  us.  Shall  we  not  aspire  to  be 
perfect  ?     Shall  we  be  content  with  low  meas- 


Exactingness.  269 

ures  and  1OW  standards  in  anything  ?  To  these 
inquiries  there  seems  of  course  to  be  but  one 
answer ;  yet  the  individual  driven  forward  in 
blind,  unreasoning  aspiration  becomes  wea- 
ried, bewildered,  discontented,  restless,  fretful, 
and  miserable. 

An  unhappy  person  can  never  make  others 
happy.  The  creators  and  governors  of  a  home, 
who  are  themselves  restless  and  inharmonious, 
cannot  make  harmony  and  peace.  This  is  the 
secret  reason  why  many  a  pure,  good,  consci- 
entious person  is  only  a  source  of  uneasiness 
in  family  life.  They  are  exacting,  discontented, 
unhappy ;  and  spread  the  discontent  and  un- 
happiness  about  them.  They  are,  to  begin 
with,  on  poor  terms  with  themselves ;  they  do 
not  like  themselves ;  they  do  not  like  their 
own  appearance,  manners,  education,  accom- 
plishments ;  on  all  these  points  they  try  them- 
selves by  ideal  standards,  and  find  themselves 
wanting.  In  morals,  in  religion,  too,  the  same 
introverted    scrutiny   detects    only   errors    and 


270  Little  Foxes. 

evils,  till  all  life  seems  to  them  a  miserable, 
hopeless  failure,  and  they  wish  they  had  never 
been  born.  They  are  angry  and  disgusted  with 
themselves ;  there  is  no  self-toleration  or  self- 
endurance.  And  persons  in  a  chronic  quarrel 
with  themselves  are  very  apt  to  quarrel  with 
others.  That  exacting  nature  which  has  no 
patience  with  one's  own  inevitable  frailties  and 
errors  has  none  for  those  of  others ;  and  thus 
the  great  motive  by  which  Christianity  enforces 
tolerance  of  the  faults  of  others  loses  its  hold. 
There  are  people  who  make  no  allowances 
either  for  themselves  or  anybody  else,  but  are 
equally  angry  and  disgusted  with  both. 

Now  it  is  important  that  those  finely  strung 
natures  in  which  ideality  largely  predominates 
should  begin  life  by  a  religious  care  and  re- 
straint of  this  faculty.  As  the  case  often 
stands,  however,  religion  only  intensifies  the 
difficulty,  by  adding  stringency  to  exaction  and 
censoriousness,  driving  the  subject  up  with  an 
unremitting   strain   till   the  very  cords  of  rea- 


Exactingness.  271 

son  sometimes  snap.  Yet,  properly  understood 
and  used,  religion  is  the  only  cure  for  the  evil 
of  diseased  ideality.  The  Christian  religion  is 
the  only  one  that  ever  proposed  to  give  to 
all  human  beings,  however  various  the  range 
of  their  nature  and  desires,  the  great  underly- 
ing gift  of  rest.  Its  Author,  with  a  strength 
of  assurance  which  only  supreme  Divinity  can 
justify,  promises  rest  to  all  persons,  under  all 
circumstances,  with  all  sorts  of  natures,  all 
sorts  of  wants,  and  all  sorts  of  defects.  The 
invitation  is  as  wide  as  the  human  race  :  "  Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy-laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

Now  this  is  the  more  remarkable,  as  this 
gracious  promise  is  accompanied  by  the  pre- 
sentation of  a  standard  of  perfection  which  is 
more  ideal  and  exacting  than  any  other  that 
has  ever  been  placed  before  mankind,  —  which, 
in  so  many  words,  sets  up  absolute  perfection 
as  the  only  true  goal  of  aspiration. 

The  problem  which  Jesus  proposes  to  human 


272  Little  Foxes. 

nature  is  endless  aspiration  steadied  by  end- 
less peace,  —  a  perfectly  restful,  yet  unceasing 
effort  after  a  good  which  is  never  to  be  at- 
tained till  we  attain  a  higher  and  more  per 
feet  form  of  existence.  It  is  because  this  prob 
lem  is  insolvable  by  any  human  wisdom,  that 
He  says  that  they  who  take  His  yoke  upon 
them  must  learn  of  Him,  for  He  alone  can 
make  the  perfect  yoke  easy  and  its  burden 
light. 

The  first  lesson  in  this  benignant  school  must 
lie  like  a  strong,  broad  foundation  under  every 
structure  on  which  we  wish  to  rear  a  happy  life, 
—  and  that  is,  that  the  full  gratification  of  the 
faculty  of  ideality  is  never  to  be  expected  in  this 
present  stage  of  existence,  but  is  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  a  future  life.  Ideality,  with  its  inces- 
sant, restless  longings  and  yearnings,  is  snubbed 
and  turned  out  of  doors  by  human  philosophy, 
when  philosophy  becomes  middle-aged  and  sul- 
ky with  repeated  disappointments,  —  it  is  be- 
rated as  a  cheat  and  a  liar,  —  told  to  hold  its 


Exactingness.  273 

tongue   and   take   itself  elsewhere ;   but   Chris 
tianity  bids  it  be  of  good  cheer,  still  to  aspire 
and  hope  and  prophesy,  and  points  to  a  future 
where  all  its  dreams  shall  be  outdone  by  reality. 

A  full  faith  in  such  a  perfect  future  —  a  per- 
fect faith  that  God  has  planted  in  man  no  desire 
which  he  cannot  train  to  complete  enjoyment  in 
that  future  —  gives  the  mind  rest  and  content- 
ment to  postpone  for  a  while  gratifications  that 
will  certainly  come  at  last. 

Such  a  faith  is  better  even  than  that  native 
philosophical  good  sense  whijh  restrains  the 
ideal  calculations  and  hopes  of  some ;  for  it  has 
a  wider  scope  and  a  deeper  power. 

We  have  seen  in  our  time  a  woman  gifted 
with  all  those  faculties  which  rejoice  in  the  re- 
finements of  society,  dispensing  the  elegant  hos- 
pitalities of  a  bountiful  home,  joyful  and  giving 
joy.  A  sudden  reverse  has  swept  all  this  away, 
the  wealth  on  which  it  was  based  has  melted  like 
a  fog-bank  in  a  warm  morning,  and  we  have  seen 
her  with  her  little  family  beginning  life  again  in 
12*  r 


274         »  Little  Foxes. 

the  log-cabin  of  a  Western  settlement.  We  have 
seen  her  sitting  in  the  door  of  the  one  room  that 
took  the  place  of  parlor,  bed-room,  nursery,  and 
cheerfully  making  her  children's  morning  toilette 
by  the  help  of  the  one  tin  wash-bowl  that  takes 
the  place  of  her  well-arranged  bathing-  and 
dressing-rooms ;  and  yet,  as  she  twined  their 
curls  over  her  fingers,  she  had  a  laugh  and  a 
jest  and  cheerful  word  for  all.  The  few  morn- 
ing-glories that  she  was  training  over  her  rude 
porch  seemed  as  much  a  source  of  delight  to 
her  as  her  former  greenhouse  and  garden;  and 
the  adjustment  of  the  one  or  two  shelves  where- 
on were  the  half-dozen  books  left  of  the  library, 
her  husband's  private  papers,  and  her  own  and 
her  children's  wardrobe,  was  entered  into  daily 
with  a  zealous  interest  as  if  she  had  never  known 
a  wider  sphere. 

Such  facility  of  accommodation  to  life's  re- 
verses is  sometimes  supposed  to  be  merely  the 
result  of  a  hopeful  and  cheerful  temperament ; 
in  this  case  it  was  purely  the  work  of  religion 


Exactingness.  275 

In  eany  life,  this  same  woman  had  been  the 
discontented  slave  of  ideality,  had  sighed  with 
vain  longings  in  the  midst  of  real  and  sub- 
stantial comfort,  had  felt  even  the  creasing  of 
the  rose-leaves  of  her  pillow  an  intolerable  an- 
noyance. Now  she  has  resigned  herself  to  the 
work  and  toil  of  life  as  the  soldier  does  to  the 
duties  of  the  camp,  satisfied  to  do  and  to  bear, 
enjoying  with  a  free  heart  the  small  daily 
pleasures  which  spring  up  like  wild-flowers 
amid  daily  toils  and  annoyances,  and  looking 
to  the  end  of  the  campaign  for  rest  and  con- 
genial scenes. 

This  woman  has  within  her  the  powers  and 
gifts  of  an  artist ;  but  her  pencils  and  her  col- 
ors are  resolutely  laid  away,  and  she  sits  hour 
after  hour  darning  her  children's  stockings  and 
turning  and  arranging  a  scanty  wardrobe  which 
no  ingenuity  can  make  more  than  decent.  She 
was  a  beautiful  musician  ;  but  a  musical  in- 
strument is  now  a  thing  of  the  past ;  she  only 
lulls  her  baby   to   sleep  with   snatches  of  the 


276  Little  Foxes. 

songs  which  used  to  form  the  attraction  oi 
brilliant  salons.  She  feels  that  a  world  of 
tastes  and  talents  are  lying  dormant  in  he:* 
while  she  is  doing  the  daily  work  of  a  nurse, 
cook,  and  seamstress  ;  but  she  remembers  Who 
took  upon  Him  the  form  of  a  servant  before 
her,  and  she  has  full  faith  that  her  beautiful 
gifts,  like  bulbs  sleeping  under  ground,  shall 
come  up  and  blossom  again  in  that  fair  future 
which  He  has  promised.  Therefore  it  is  that 
she  has  no  sighs  for  the  present  or  the  past, — 
no  quarrel  with  her  life,  or  her  lot  in  it ;  she  is 
in  harmony  with  herself  and  with  all  around 
her ;  her  husband  looks  upon  her  as  a  fair 
daily  miracle,  and  her  children  rise  up  and  call 
her  blessed. 

But,  having  laid  the  broad  foundation  of  faith 
in  a  better  life,  as  the  basis  on  which  to  ground 
our  present  happiness,  we  who  are  of  the  ideal 
nature  must  proceed  to  build  thereon  wisely. 

In   the   first   place,   we   must    cultivate    the 
duty  of  self-patience  and  self-toleration.     Of  ai» 


Exac  Ungues  s.  277 

the  religionists  and  moralists  who  ever  taught, 
Fenelon  is  the  only  one  who  has  distinctly  for- 
mulated the  duty  which  a  self-educator  owes 
to  himself.  Have  patience  with  yourself 
is  a  direction  often  occurring  in  his  writings, 
and  a  most  important  one  it  is,  —  because  pa- 
tience with  ourselves  is  essential,  if  we  would 
have  patience  with  others.  Let  us  look  through 
the  world.  Who  are  the  people  easiest  to  be 
pleased,  most  sunny,  most  urbane,  most  toler- 
ant ?  Are  they  not  persons  from  constitution 
and  temperament  on  good  terms  with  them- 
selves, —  people  who  do  not  ask  much  of  them- 
selves or  try  themselves  severely,  and  who 
therefore  are  in  a  good  humor  for  looking 
upon  others  ?  But  how  is  a  person  who  is  con- 
scious of  a  hundred  daily  faults  and  errors  to 
have  patience  with  himself  ?  The  question  may 
be  answered  by  asking,  What  would  you  say 
to  a  child  who  fretted,  scolded,  dashed  down 
his  slate,  and  threw  his  book  on  the  floor,  be- 
cause   he    made    mistakes    in   his   arithmetic  ? 


278  Little  Foxes. 

You  would  say,  of  course,  "  You  are  but  a 
learner;  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  you  will 
not  make  mistakes  ;  all  children  do.  Have  pa- 
tience." Just  as  you  would  talk  to  that  child, 
talk  to  yourself.  Be  reconciled  to  a  lot  of  in- 
evitable imperfection  ;  be  content  to  try  con- 
tinually, and  often  to  fail.  It  is  the  inevitable 
condition  of  human  existence,  and  is  to  be 
accepted  as  such.  (K  patient  acceptance  of 
mortifications  and  of  defeats  of  our  life's  labor 
is  often  more  efficacious  for  our  moral  advance- 
ment than  even  our  victories^ 

In  the  next  place,  we  must  school  ourselves 
not  to  look  with  restless  desire  to  degrees  of  ex- 
cellence in  any  department  of  life  which  circum- 
stances evidently  forbid  our  attaining.  For  a 
woman  with  plenty  of  money  and  plenty  of 
well-trained  servants  to  be  content  to  have  fly- 
specked  windows,  or  littered  rooms,  or  a  sloven- 
ly-ordered table,  is  a  sin.  But  in  a  woman  in 
feeble  health,  incumbered  with  a  flock  of  restless 
little  ones,  and  whose  circumstances  allow  her  to 


Exactingness.  279 

keep  but  one  servant,  it  may  be  a  piece  of  moral 
heroism  to  shut  her  eyes  on  many  such  things, 
while  securing  mere  essentials  to  life  and  health. 
It  may  be  a  virtue  in  her  not  to  push  neatness 
to  such  lengths  as  to  wear  herself  out,  or  to 
break  down  her  only  servant,  and  to  be  resigned 
to  have  her  tastes  and  preferences  for  order, 
cleanliness,  and  beauty  crossed,  as  she  would 
resign  herself  to  any  other  affliction.  No  pur- 
gatory can  be  more  severe  to  people  of  a  thor- 
ough and  exact  nature  than  to  be  so  situated 
that  they  can  only  half  do  everything  they  un- 
dertake ;  yet  such  is  the  fiery  trial  to  which  many 
a  one  is  subjected.  Life  seems  to  drive  them 
along  without  giving  them  time  for  anything ; 
everything  is  ragged,  hasty  performance,  of 
which  the  mind  most  keenly  sees  and  feels  the 
raggedness  and  hastiness.  Even  one  thing  done 
as  it  really  ought  to  be  done  would  be  a  rest  and 
refreshment  to  the  soul ;  but  nowhere,  in  any 
department  of  its  undertakings,  is  there  any 
such  thing  to  be  perceived. 


2.8o  Little  Foxes. 

But  there  are  cases  where  a  great  deal  of 
wear  and  tear  can  be  saved  to  the  nerves  by  a 
considerate  making  up  of  one's  mind  as  to  how 
much  in  certain  circumstances  had  better  be 
undertaken  at  all.  Let  the  circumstances  of 
life  be  surveyed,  the  objects  we  are  pursuing 
arranged  and  counted,  and  see  if  there  are  not 
things  here  and  there  that  may  be  thrown  out 
of  our  plans  entirely,  that  others  may  be  better 
done. 

What  if  the  whole  care  of  expensive  table 
luxuries,  like  cake  and  preserves,  be  thrown 
out  of  a  housekeeper's  budget,  in  order  that 
the  essential  articles  of  cookery  may  be  better 
prepared  ?  What  if  ruffling,  embroidery,  and 
the  entire  department  of  kindred  fine  arts,  be 
thrown  out  of  her  calculations,  in  providing 
for  the  clothing  of  a  family  ?  Many  a  feeble 
woman  has  died  of  too  much  ruffling,  as  she 
patiently  sat  up  night  after  night  sewing  the 
thread  of  a  precious,  invaluable  life  into  elab- 
orate articles  which  her  children  were  none 
the  healthier  or  more  virtuous  for  wearing. 


Exactingness.  281 

Ideality  is  constantly  ramifying  and  extend- 
ing the  department  of  the  toilette  and  the 
needle  into  a  world  of  work  and  worry,  where- 
in distracted  women  wander  up  and  down, 
seeing  no  end  anywhere.  The  sewing-ma- 
chine was  announced  as  a  relief  to  these  toils ; 
but  has  it  proved  so  ?  We  trow  not.  It 
only  amounts  to  this,  —  that  now  there  can 
be  seventy-two  tucks  on  each  little  petticoat, 
instead  of  fifteen,  as  before,  and  that  twice  as 
many  garments  are  made  up  and  held  to  be 
necessary  as  formerly.  The  women  still  sew 
to  the  limit  of  human  endurance ;  and  still 
the  old  proverb  holds  good,  that  woman's 
work  is  never  done. 

In  the  matter  of  dress,  much  wear  and  tear 
of  spirit  and  nerves  may  be  saved  by  not  be- 
ginning to  go  in  certain  directions,  well  know- 
ing that  they  will  take  us  beyoud  our  resources 
of  time,   strength,   and   money. 

There  is  one  word  of  fear  in  the  vocabulary 
of  women  of  our  time  which  must  be  pondered 


282  Little  Foxes. 

advisedly,  —  trimming.  In  old  times  a  good 
garment  was  enough ;  now-a-days  a  garment 
is  nothing  without  trimming.  Everything, 
from  the  first  article  that  the  baby  wears  up 
to  the  elaborate  dress  of  the  bride,  must  be 
trimmed  at  a  rate  that  makes  the  trimming 
more  than  the  original  article.  A  dress  can 
be  made  in  a  day,  but  it  cannot  be  trimmed 
under  two  or  three  days.  Let  a  faithful,  con- 
scientious woman  make  up  her  mind  how  much 
of  all  this  burden  of  life  she  will  assume,  re- 
membering wisely  that  there  is  no  end  to 
ideality  in  anything,  and  that  the  only  way  to 
deal  with  many  perplexing  parts  of  life  is  to 
leave  them  out   altogether. 

Mrs.  Kirkland,  in  her  very  amusing  account 
of  her  log-cabin  experiences,  tells  us  of  the 
great  disquiet  and  inconvenience  she  had  in 
attempting  to  arrange  in  her  lowly  abode  a 
most  convenient  clothes-press,  which  was  man- 
ifestly too  large  for  the  establishment.  Having 
labored  with  the  cumbersome  convenience  for 


Exactingness.  283 

a  great  length  of  time,  and  with  much  discom- 
fort, she  at  last  resigned  the  ordering  of  it  to 
a  brawny-armed  damsel  of  the  forest,  who  be- 
gan by  pitching  it  out  of  doors,  with  the  com- 
prehensive remark,  that,  "  where  there  was  n't 
room  for  a  thing,  there  was  n't." 

The  wisdom  which  inspired  the  remark  of 
this  rustic  maiden  might  have  saved  the  lives 
of  many  matrons  who  have  worn  themselves 
out  in  vain  attempts  to  make  comforts  and 
conveniences  out  of  things  which  they  had 
better  have  thrown  out  of  doors  altogether. 

True,  it  requires  some  judgment  to  know 
what,  among  objects  commonly  pursued  in  any 
department,  we  really  ought  to  reject ;  and  it 
requires  independence  and  steadiness  to  say, 
"  I  will  not  begin  to  try  to  do  certain  things 
that  others  are  doing,  and  that,  perhaps,  they 
expect  of  me " ;  but  there  comes  great  leisure 
and  quietness  of  spirit  from  the  gaps  thus  made. 
When  the  unwieldy  clothes-press  was  once  cast 
out,  everything  in  the  log-cabin  could  have 
room, 


284  Little  Foxes. 

A  mother,  who  is  anxiously  trying  to  recon- 
cile the  watchful  care  and  training  of  her  little 
ones  with  the  maintenance  of  fashionable  calls 
and  parties,  may  lose  her  life  in  the  effort  to 
do  both,  and  do  both  in  so  imperfect  a  man- 
ner as  never  to  give  her  a  moment's  peace. 
But  on  the  morrow  after  she  comes  to  the  se- 
rious and  Christian  resolve,  "  The  training  of 
my  children  is  all  that  I  can  do  well,  and 
henceforth  it  shall  be  my  sole  object,"  there 
falls  into  her  tumultuous  life  a  Sabbath  pause 
of  peace  and  leisure.  It  is  true  that  she  is 
still  doing  a  work  in  which  absolute  perfection 
ever  recedes  ;  but  she  can  make  relative  attain- 
ments far  nearer  the  standard  than  before. 

/Lastly,  under  the  head  of  ideality  let  us  re- 
solve to  be  satisfied  with  our  own  past  doings, 
when  at  the  time  of  doing  we  used  all  the  light 
God  gave  us,  and  did  all  in  our  power. 

The  backward  action  of  ideality  is  often  full 
as  tormenting  as  its  forward  and  prospective 
movements.     The  moment  a  thing  is  done  and 


Exactingness.  285 

over,  one  would  think  that  good  sense  would 
lead  us  to  drop  it  like  a  stone  in  the  ocean; 
but  the  morbid  idealist  cannot  cut  loose  from 
the  past. 

"  Was  that,  after  all,  the  best  thing  ?  Would 
it  not  have  been  better  so  or  so  ? "  And  the 
self-tormented  individual  lies  wakeful,  during 
weary  night-hours,  revolving  a  thousand  possi- 
bilities, and  conjuring  up  a  thousand  vague 
perhapses.  "  If  I  had  only  done  so  now,  per- 
haps this  result  would  have  followed,  or  that 
would  not " ;  and  as  there  is  never  any  saying 
but  that  so  it  might  have  turned  out,  the  laby- 
rinth and  the  discontent  are  alike  endless. 

Now  there  is  grand  good  sense  in  the  Apos- 
tle's direction,  "Forgetting  the  things  that  are 
behind,  press  forward."  The  idealist  should 
charge  himself,  as  with  an  oath  of  God,  to  let 
the  past  alone  as  an  accomplished  fact,  solely 
concerning  himself  with  the  inquiry,  "  Did  I 
not  do  the  best  I  then  knew  how  ? " 

The  maxim  of  the  Quietists   is,   that,  when 


2$6  Little  Foxes. 

we  have  acted  according  to  the  best  light  we 
have,  we  have  expressed  the  will  of  God  un- 
der those  circumstances,  —  since,  had  it  been 
otherwise,  more  and  different  light  would  have 
been  given  us  ;  and  with  the  will  of  God  done 
by  ourselves  as  by  Himself,  it  is  our  duty  to 
be  content. 

Having  written  thus  far  in  my  article,  and 
finding  nothing  more  at  hand  to  add  to  it,  I 
went  into  the  parlor  to  read  it  to  Jenny  and 
Mrs.  Crowfield.  I  found  the  former  engaged 
in  the  task  of  binding  sixty  yards  of  quilling, 
(so  I  think  she  called  it,)  which  were  absolutely 
necessary  for  perfecting  a  dress  ;  and  the  latter 
was  braiding  one  of  seven  little  petticoats, 
stamped  with  elaborate  patterns,  which  she 
had  taken  from  Marianne,  because  that  virtu- 
ous matron  was  ruining  her  eyes  and  health 
in  a  blind  push  to  get  them  done  before  Oc- 
tober. 

-3oth   approved   and   admired    my  piece,  and 


Exactingness*  287 

1    thought    of   Saint  Anthony's   preaching    to 
the  fishes :  — 

The  sermon  now  ended, 

Each  turned  and  descended ; 

The  pikes  went  on  stealing, 

The  eels  went  on  eeling. 

Much  delighted  were  they, 
But  preferred  the  old  way. 


THE    END. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


-J  1948 


APR  7     19* 

SMar52HL 

26Feb5  2Lu 


26Nov'S7JN 


REC'D  LD 

HM 12  1957 

1  2  1978 

BEQ.CS& 


21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


U  C    BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 
"    "III" 


M50011S 


V 


